









































\ 









"• 



VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE 

TOWARD SLAVERY 

AND SECESSION 



VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE 

TOWARD 
SLAVERY AND SECESSION 



BY 

BEVERLEY B. MUNFORD 



HUMAN1TATEM AMOREMQUE PATRIAE COUTI 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO 

91 and 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 

1909 






Copyright, 1909 

by 

Beverley B. Munford 



97 7 



TO 
MY WIFE 



PREFACE 

This work is designed as a contribution to the volume 
of information from which the historian of the future will 
be able to prepare an impartial and comprehensive narra- 
tive of the American Civil War, or to speak more accurately 
— The American War of Secession. 

No attempt has been made to present the causes which 
precipitated the secession of the Cotton States, nor the 
states which subsequently adopted the same policy, except 
Virginia. Even in regard to that commonwealth the 
effort has been limited to the consideration of two features 
prominent in the public mind as constituting the most 
potent factors in determining her action — namely, devo- 
tion to slavery and hostility to the Union. That the 
people of Virginia were moved to secession by a selfish 
desire to extend or maintain the institution of slavery, 
or from hostility to the Union, are propositions seemingly 
at variance with their whole history and the interests 
which might naturally have controlled them in the hour 
of separation. Yet how widespread the impression and 
how frequent the suggestion from the pen of historian and 
publicist that the great and compelling motives which led 
Virginia to secede were a desire to extend slavery into 
the territories and to safeguard the institution within her 
own borders, coupled with a spirit of hostility to the 
Union and the ideals of liberty proclaimed by its founders. 
To present the true attitude of the dominant element of 
the Virginia people with respect to these subjects is the 
work which the author has taken in hand. 



VII 



viii PREFACE 

As cognate to this purpose the effort has been made 
to show what was the proximate cause which influenced 
the great body of the Virginia people in the hour of final 
decision. There were unquestionably many and widely 
severed causes — some remote in origin and some imme- 
diate to the hour, yet it may be safely asserted that but 
L) «T Af p for the adoption by the Federal Government of the policy 
of coercion towards the Cotton States, Virginia would 
not have seceded. That was the crucial and determining 
factor, which impelled her secession. She denied the 
right of the Federal Government to defeat by force of 
arms the aspiration of a people as numerous and united 
as those of the Cotton States to achieve in peace their 
independence. She believed that such a course and the 
exercise of such a power on the part of the Federal Govern- 
ment, if not actually beyond the scope of its powers as 
fixed in the constitution, were clearly repugnant to the 
ideals of the Republic, and subversive of the principles for 
which their Fathers had fought and won the battles of the 
Revolution. Upon the question, shall the Cotton States 
be permitted to withdraw in peace, or shall their aspira- 
tions be defeated by force of arms, Virginia assumed no 
new position. She simply in the hour of danger and 
sacrifice held faithful to the principles which she had oft- 
times declared and which have ever found sturdy defenders 
in every part of the Republic. 

In the preparation of this volume the author has been 
the grateful recipient of the labors of many historians 
and publicists, accredited citations from whose works will 
be found throughout its pages. 

In addition, he desires to acknowledge his indebtedness 
to the following gentlemen : 

First and foremost, to Dr. Philip Alexander Bruce of 



PREFACE ix 

Virginia, for his generous sympathy and invaluable assist- 
ance, with respect to every feature of the book; also to 
Edward M. Shepard, Esquire, and Reverend Samuel H. 
Bishop of New York and to Colonel Archer Anderson and 
Henry W. Anderson, Esquire, of Richmond, for their 
kindness in reading his manuscript and making many 
helpful suggestions. 

For none of the errors of the book, nor for any expression 
of opinion, are these gentlemen responsible. 

Thanks are due and tendered to Dr. Herbert Putnam, 
Librarian of Congress, Dr. H. R. Mcllwaine, State Librarian 
of Virginia, and Mr. W. G. Stanard, Corresponding Secretary 
of the Virginia Historical Society, and to their courteous 
assistants, for the generous use accorded the author of the 
wealth of historical data in the custody of those institutions. 

In addition to the foregoing, acknowledgments are 
gratefully made to a great company of librarians, lawyers, 
antiquarians, clerks of courts, custodians of private manu- 
scripts and others who have assisted the author in collecting 
from widely separated sections of the Union the mass of 
information from which he has drawn, in the preparation 
of this work. In many instances, the facts so kindly 
furnished do not appear, but have been of service to the 
author, in enabling him to form more accurate conclusions. 
The willingness exhibited by citizens of states, other than 
Virginia, to furnish information with respect to the subject 
under consideration, is indicative of a growing desire 
throughout the Union to know the facts and appreciate 
the viewpoint of our once separated but now united people. 
If this book, in presenting the attitude of Virginia, shall 
contribute to this result, it will afford the author the 
sincerest gratification. 

Richmond, Virginia, June, 1909 



CONTENTS 



The Author's Preface 

Part I 

Page 
Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession 
Defined 

I. Introduction 1 

II. Virginia — Slavery and Secession^ . . . .10 

Part II 

Virginia Did Not Secede in Order to Extend Slavery 
into the Territories, or to Prevent its Threatened 
Destruction Within Her Own Borders 

III. Virginia's Colonial Record with Respect to 

Slavery .15 

IV. Virginia's Statute Abolishing the African Slave 

Trade and Her Part in Enacting the Ordinance 

of 1787 25 

V. Slavery and the Federal Constitution — Virginia's 

Position 29 

VI. The Foreign Slave Trade — Virginia's Efforts to 

Abolish It 33 

VII. Some Virginia Statutes with Respect to Slavery . 41 

VIII. The Movement in the Virginia Legislature of 1832 

to Abolish Slavery in the State . . . .45 

IX. The Northern Abolitionists and Their Reaction- 
ary Influence upon Anti-Slavery Sentiment in 
Virginia 51 

X. Negro Colonization — State and National . . 60 

XI. Instances of Colonization by Individual Slave- 
holders 66 

xi 



cii CONTENTS 

Page 
XII. Emancipation and Colonization — Views of Jeffer- 
son, Clay and Lincoln 75 

XIII. Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent Virginians. 82 

XIV. Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent Virginians. 

Continued 91 

XV. Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent Virginians. 

Concluded 96 

XVI. Specimens of Deeds and Wills Emancipating Slaves 104 

XVII. Specimens of Deeds and Wills Emancipating 

Slaves. Concluded 114 

XVIII. The Small Number of Slaveholders in Virginia, as 

Compared with Her Whole White Population . 125 

XIX. The Injurious Effects of Slavery upon the Pros- 
perity of Virginia 128 

XX. The Custom of Buying and Selling Slaves — Vir- 
ginia's Attitude 139 

XXI. The Custom of Buying and Selling Slaves — Vir- 
ginia's Attitude. Concluded .... 147 

XXII. Small Proportion of Slaveholders among Virginia 

Soldiers 154 

XXIII. Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties which 

Embarrassed Every Plan of Emancipation . 159 

XXIV. Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties which 

Embarrassed Every Plan of Emancipation. Con- 
tinued 164 

XXV. Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties which 
Embarrassed Every Plan of Emancipation. 
Concluded 175 

XXVI. The Status of the Controversy Regarding Slav- 
ery at the Time Virginia Seceded from the Union 185 

XXVII. The Status of the Controversy Regarding Slav- 
ery at the Time Virginia Seceded from the 
Union. Concluded 193 

XXVIII. The Attitude of Certain Northern States . . 201 

XXIX. The Attitude of Certain Northern States. Con- 
cluded ........ 206 



XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 



CONTENTS 

The Abolitionists 

The Abolitionists and Disunion 

The Abolitionists and Disunion. Concluded 



xm 

Page 

214 
217 
225 



The Emancipation Proclamations and the Virginia 
People 230 



Part III 

Virginia Did Not Secede From a Wanton Desire to 
Destroy the Union, or From Hostility to the 
Ideals op its Founders 

XXXIV. Virginia's Part in the Revolution . , .237 

XXXV. Virginia's Part in Making the Union under the 

Constitution 242 

XXXVI. Virginia's Efforts to 
and Union in 1861 



Promote Reconciliation 



248 

XXXVII. The People of Virginia Declare for Union . . 255 

Part IV 

The Attempt of the Federal Government to Coerce 
the Cotton States — The Proximate Cause op Vir- 
ginia's Secession 

XXXVIII. The Coercion of the Cotton States— Virginia's 

Position 263 

XXXIX. The Contest in the Virginia Convention for 

and against Secession 269 

XL. The Contest in the Virginia Convention for 

and against Secession. Concluded . . 277 

XLI. The Attempted Reinforcement of Fort Sumter 

and its Significance 284 

XLII. The Attempt to Coerce the Cotton States Im- 
pels Virginia to Secede 290 

XLIII. Conclusion 301 

Bibliography 305 

Index 312 



PART I 

VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE TOWARD SLAVERY 
AND SECESSION DEFINED 



INTRODUCTION 

The story of the American Civil War presents a subject 
fraught with interest, not destined to die with the passing 
years. Even the finality of the verdict then rendered 
on the issues joined will not abate the desire of men to 
fix with precision the political and ethical questions in- 
volved and the motives which impelled the participants 
in that deplorable tragedy. The sword may determine 
the boundaries of empire or the political destinies of a 
people, but the great assize of the world's thought and 
conscience tries again and again the merits of controversies 
and brings victor and vanquished to the bar of its in- 
creasingly fair and discriminating judgment. 

What was the character of the War? Though one of 
the greatest wars of modern times, having its rise and fall 
before the eyes of all the world, yet men are to-day in 
doubt as to the true term by which to describe it. 

Was it a Civil War? Such a conception omits the claim 
of the North that the Federal Government as such fought 
to maintain its constitutional supremacy, and the claim 
of the South that the seceding states but exercised their 
constitutional rights in seceding, and as states fought to 
maintain that principle. A civil war betokens one people, 
in the same country, subjects of the same power, at war 
among themselves. Here, though afore-time country- 
men, when the battle was joined, there were two rival 
governments, and the territories of the contending parties 

1 



2 CHARACTER OF WAR 

were distinguished, not by shibboleths and banners, but 
by rivers and mountain ranges. It was a sectional rather 
than a community war, a conflict between governments 
rather than between citizens of the same government. 

Was it a Rebellion? Such a conflict indicates a revolt 
of citizens or subjects against their acknowledged sovereign. 
Whether in the United States the citizen owed allegiance 
to the Federal Government as against his State Govern- 
ment was a question upon which men had divided since 
the birth of the Republic. The men of the North responded 
to the call of the sovereign to whose allegiance they ac- 
knowledged fealty — the men of the South did the same. 
It was a battle between rival conceptions of sovereignty 
rather than one between a sovereign and its acknowledged 
citizens. 

Was it a Revolution? A revolution is a successful 
movement of citizens or subjects against their sovereign. 
Here the identity of the Sovereign was in dispute, and the 
effort, though of unexampled magnitude, was unsuccess- 
ful. In addition the parties to the conflict held irrecon- 
cilable conceptions as to what constituted the right of 
revolution — one insisting that it was a God-given right 
inherent in any people sufficiently numerous to maintain 
a National existence; the other, that it was a mere power 
to strike, dependent upon success to prove the legitimacy 
of the claim. 

The parties to the Conflict were not rival nations, but 
compatriots of the same flag; joint inheritors of the English 
Common Law and the ideals of liberty consecrated by 
centuries of heroic struggle; descendants of an ancestry 
knit in political sympathy by their successful battle for 
independence from the Mother Country, and the achieve- 
ments by which they made their new-born nation great; 



ERRATA 

Page 142, line 8, for " stately," read " noble." 
" 142, line 10, for "over," read rt above." 
" 162, line 7, for " MacMaster," read "McMaster." 
" 162, footnote, for " MacMaster," read " McMaster." 
" 214, line 12, for " Cathargo," read "Carthago." 
" 242, footnote, for " Vol. IV." read " Vol. VI." 



PARTIES TO CONFLICT 3 

children of Puritan and Cavalier, Quaker and Hugue- 
not; Dutchman and Catholic-Frenchman; men of strong 
individual and community traits, accustomed to rule and 
untutored in the art of surrender. 

The causes of the War were deep-seated and complex. 
They were Old- World antagonisms, religious and political, 
antedating, and yet surviving, the settlements at Jamestown 
and Plymouth Rock, New Amsterdam, and New Orleans ; — 

The early development in the two great divisions of the 
country, of diverse economic conditions — a land of small 
farms and multiplied industrial activities confronting one 
of large plantations and agricultural supremacy; — 

The Protective Tariff, at first enacted to secure for 
American manufactures a chance to compete successfully 
with those of the Old World, but, in its results, a burden- 
some system, under which the agriculturists of the South 
paid onerous tribute to the manufacturers of the North; — 

Slavery — an institution which specialized more and 
more the interests of the South in the great exporting 
staples of cotton, rice and tobacco, driving manufactures 
and mining into the more hospitable regions of the North ; — 
an institution whose life or death was within the exclusive 
power of the separate states where it was legalized, and 
yet the manifold incidents of whose existence were the 
subject of frequent National legislation, and hence ever 
recurring occasions of sectional strife; — an institution 
which quickened in time among the people of the non- 
slaveholding states the conviction that it was a sin, with 
the consequent charge that all responsible for its existence 
were parties to a crime, thus arousing the bitter resentment 
of devout men in the slaveholding states, who, protesting 
their innocence of wrong, challenged the right of their 
Northern brethren to sit in judgment upon them; — 



4 CAUSES OF WAR 

The Annexation of Texas: A new cause and occasion 
for sectional jealousy, precipitating the war with Mexico, 
and bringing additional territory into the Union with fresh 
disputes over the powers of Congress in regard thereto; — 

The Immense Foreign Immigration into the North and 
West; — thus developing in those sections the strongest 
sentiments of Nationalism, while the South, unaffected 
by any such forces, adhered to the early ideals of state 
pride and state supremacy; — 

State Sovereignty versus National Supremacy; — the 
first, the shield behind which aggrieved minorities sought 
to curb arrogant majorities and safeguard the rights 
and interests of community life; the second, the ideal 
by which the preservation of the Union was to be 
assured and its dignity and power at home and abroad 
vindicated; — 

The Missouri Compromise — its enactment and repeal, 
the controversies as to the power of Congress to prohibit 
slaveholders from migrating with their slaves into the 
territories, the enactment by Congress of the Fugitive 
Slave Law of 1850 and the attitude of certain Northern 
States in attempting to defeat its execution, the Under- 
ground Railroad, the decision in the Dred Scott case, the 
armed conflicts in Kansas, the John Brown Raid and the 
sympathy evinced at the North for the man and his venture; 
and finally: 

The asserted right of the Cotton States to withdraw 
from the Union, and the declared purpose of the Federal 
Government to defeat their aspiration by force of arms. 

Add to all the foregoing the vision of mighty armies 
struggling for mastery, the terrors and miseries of war — 
contrasted with the heroism and devotion which it aroused, 
and there results a combination of causes which will 



CAUSES OF WAR 5 

continue to make their compelling appeal to the hearts 
and imaginations of men. 

If the causes of the war were manifold and perplexing, 
the exact object for which each of the contending parties 
did battle is only less difficult of precise definition. A 
brief consideration of some of the many forms in which 
the popular voice has sought to express the conception 
will serve to illustrate the truth of this suggestion. 

"The North fought to preserve the Union — the South, ^c* 
to destroy it." 

That one great element of the Northern people took up 
arms at the call of the Federal Government to prevent 
a dismemberment of the Union is undoubtedly true. That 
another element regarded the maintenance of the Union 
under the existing constitution as unworthy of effort is 
equally true. The first went forth at the earliest call to 
preserve the Union under the old constitution; the second 
came later to the battle to fight for a Union with a con- 
stitution which should decree the abolition of slavery. 
That the Southern people sought to establish the inde- 
pendence of their new Confederacy and to that extent a 
dismemberment of the Union is true, but that they desired 
the destruction of the Union and the principles of liberty 
and law which its establishment was designed to assure 
are conclusions not easily deducible from their aspirations 
or necessities. 

"The North fought for empire, the South for inde- ;. 
pendence." 

That the North fought to keep within the limits of the 
Union the domain stretching from the Potomac to the 
Rio Grande is true, but that the great mass of her people 
were actuated by a desire to hold the land as tributary 
and its people as subjects is not true. The splendid ideal 



6 THE ISSUES INVOLVED 

of a Republic, stretching from ocean to ocean, and securing 
to its growing millions the dual blessings which spring 
from National integrity and home rule, we may well believe 
was ever before them. That one great element of the 
Southern people fought for independence and all the 
inspiring ideals which the term implies is true, though it 
is equally true that joined with them in the battle were 
states the dominant elements of whose people cherished 
no primal desire for separation from the Union, but resisted 
the authorities of the latter because of their convictions 
that its policy of coercion was illegal and destructive of 
the principle upon which the Republic had been founded. 

"The North fought to destroy slavery; the South, to 
extend and maintain it." 

That slavery was the most potent factor in developing 
the conditions which finally precipitated war is true. 
That the two parties to the conflict joined battle upon the 
issue of its maintenance or destruction seems inconsistent 
with their solemnly declared purposes and promises, made 
at the time. President Lincoln at his inauguration pro- 
claimed: "I have no purpose directly or indirectly to 
interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where 
it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I 
have no inclination to do so." This pledge of the President 
was but a reaffirmation of the platform of his party, and 
both were, in turn, confirmed by the declaration of Con- 
gress that the war was fought, "to defend and maintain 
the supremacy of the constitution and to preserve the 
Union with all the dignity, equality and rights of the 
several states unimpaired." 

President Davis presented the attitude of his people 
and government when he declared: "All we ask is to be 
let alone — that those who never held power over us shall 



THE ISSUES INVOLVED 7 

not now attempt our subjugation by arms." And after 
three years of desperate war, he declared to the repre- 
sentatives of President Lincoln: — 

"We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for 
independence. . . . Say to Mr. Lincoln for me that I shall 
at any time be pleased to receive proposals for peace, on the 
basis of our independence. It will be useless to approach 
me with any other." 1 

That the people of America in the nineteenth century 
of the Christian era should have resorted to war in order 
to settle questions of constitutional and moral right must 
forever constitute an impeachment of the capacity for self- 
government and the ethical standards of the men responsi- 
ble for its occurrence. 

The charge that the people of twenty-three states in four 
of which slavery was legalized arose in arms against their 
fellow-citizens of the remaining eleven and, despite the 
constitutional safeguards with which the institution in the 
latter states was confessedly surrounded, invaded their 
land, burnt thousands of their homes and killed tens of 
thousands of their citizens in a desperate determination 
to destroy slavery, is as compromising to American char- 
acter as the counter accusation that the people of eleven 
states, with no existing menace to their constitutional 
rights in regard to slavery, resorted to secession and 
aggressive war in order to secure new guarantees for the 
safety of the institution. Charges so dishonoring to the 
American people should not be made and above all should 
not be accepted as true — unless compelled by the inexorable 
facts of history. 

"The South fought for States' Rights — Home Rule; 
the North, for Federal rights — National Supremacy." 
^History of the United States, Rhodes, Vol. IV, p. 515. 



8 STATE RIGHTS vs. FEDERAL RIGHTS 

In the large measure of truth contained in this declara- 
tion lay the profound tragedy of the Civil War — a battle 
for the supremacy of one of two ideals, thus brought into 
antagonism, upon the maintenance of both of which, in 
their true proportions, depended so largely the success of 
the unique experiment in government established by the 
Fathers. In this union of states how were the rights of 
personal liberty and community life to be harmonized 
with the National ideals and powers essential to its preser- 
vation? Liberty and law — the consent of the governed 
and the integrity of the Government — how were these 
great ends to be assured? From the birth of the Republic, 
there were views radically divergent as to the character 
and powers of the government then created; and there 
were aspirations of devoutest patriotism alike yearning 
for the triumphs of liberty and law, though seeking these 
ideals by policies almost irreconcilable. Thus, upon the 
fair prospect of the new Republic, there lowered from its 
natal hour forebodings of strife and separation. With 
these warring ideals, intensified by divergent economic 
and political interests, there arose the forces which drove 
the shuttle of discord back and forth through the web and 
woof of the nation's life, and wrought the forbidding 
pattern of sectionalism, division and hate. What were 
the causes — what the issues — of that " strange and most 
unnatural" war? What were the motives which impelled 
the people of the South, utterly unprepared for battle, 
to risk the unequal contest, and never to desist until the 
hand of destruction had paralyzed the very heart of effort? 
What were the motives which impelled the people of the 
North to give without stint their wealth of blood and 
treasure; to marshal armies more numerous than those 
with which Napoleon confronted a world in arms, and, 



STATE RIGHTS vs. FEDERAL RIGHTS 9 

for four years, to hurl them against the homes of their 
brethren? 

Analysis is the foe of confusion and the friend of the 
light. Motives and methods, grouped and commingled, 
present difficulties of right, appreciation which ofttimes 
vanish if separated into their component parts. 

The commonwealth of Virginia bore a not inconspicuous 
part in the Civil War. It will subserve the cause of truth 
and assist to a clearer understanding of the complex condi- 
tions referred to, if we endeavor to portray the motives 
which impelled the people of this one state during those 
fateful days of 1860-61. 



II 

Virginia: Slavery and Secession 

It is not questioned that among the people of Virginia 
were men of widely divergent views; Secessionists of the 
most ultra type, insisting on the state's right to secede, 
and demanding her immediate withdrawal from the 
Union; anti-secessionists of the strongest mould, denying 
the right of secession and protesting against its attempted 
exercise; Unionists who admitted the right in the state, 
as a desperate measure of relief, but denying that any 
such occasion had arisen ; advocates of slavery who regarded 
the institution as approved of Heaven, — a blessing to 
the blacks, and essential to the safety of the whites; 
apostles of emancipation who denounced slavery and 
called for its abolition; men who would make Virginia 
"neutral territory" between the hostile sections, and 
those who would fight for her rights, but "fight within 
the Union." 

None of these elements, separately, spoke the senti- 
ments of the majority, nor represented the controlling 
force in her citizenship. We shall accept as the true 
expression of the dominant element the returns from 
the ballot box, the enactments of her legislative and 
constitutional assemblies, and the deliverances of her 
great sons. Tried by these criteria, it may be truthfully 
declared that the institution of slavery was regarded with 
disfavor by a majority of her people; that they tolerated 
its existence as a modus vivendi to meet the dangers and 

10 



VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE 11 

difficulties of the hour, but looking forward to the time 
when the increase of her white population from within 
and without, and the decrease of her blacks by emigration 
and colonization would render feasible its abolition, with 
a maximum of benefit to the slaves and their owners, 
and a minimum of danger to society and the state; that 
while cherishing an almost romantic love for their common- 
wealth, they felt genuine loyalty to the Union, and con- 
templated with profound sorrow the suggested with- 
drawal therefrom of any group of states; and, finally, 
that they carried their state out of the Union and into 
the Southern Confederacy because the authorities of the 
former sought by force of arms to defeat the latter in 
their efforts to achieve independence, and demanded of 
Virginia her quota of men to accomplish the deed. 

Secession they deplored because it broke the married calm 
of a union which its makers fondly hoped would endure 
forever, but war upon the states seeking independence 
they also deplored, because subversive of the principles 
upon which the Union was founded. Could the Federal 
Government deny to six millions of people the boon of 
independence which they were seeking by orderly and 
peaceful methods, and still remain true to the principles 
of the great Declaration, to maintain which the Fathers 
of the Republic had fought and won the battles of the 
Revolution? Have people the right to determine for 
themselves their political destiny? Are the just powers 
of governments to be measured by the consent of the 
governed? These were the questions which, carrying 
their own answers, impelled the Virginian opponents of 
coercion in 1861 to stand, as they believed, for the political 
and ethical principles which the Flag symbolized, rather 
than for the Flag itself. 



12 SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

That Virginia revered the institution of slavery, and 
from selfish motives fought to make more sure the muni- 
ments of its existence; that she desired the destruction 
of the Union, and the degenerate abandonment of the 
inspiring dreams of liberty and progress, which it was 
designed to assure, — are propositions unthinkable to 
men acquainted with her history and the genius and as- 
pirations of her people. It was for no such cause that she 
gave her sons to the sword, and her bosom as the battle- 
ground for the fiercest war of modern times. Her people 
fought because they felt the occasion made its imperious 
demand upon their duty and their honor. Virginia had 
persistently declared that the right asserted by the Cotton 
States was God-given and inalienable. Thus her sense 
of honor, as well as the imperilled right of self-government, 
impelled her to battle. 

Twenty years after the surrender at Appomattox Lord 
Wolseley wrote: "The Right of Self-Government which 
Washington won, and for which Lee fought, was no longer 
to be a watchword to stir men's blood in the United 
States." 1 

We need not accept the conclusion of this distinguished 
soldier that the cause of self-government no longer com- 
mands the allegiance of the American people, in order to 
believe that amid the trials and conflicts of the Civil War 
Virginia stood faithful for the vindication of that great 
principle. 

l R. E. Lee, Wolseley, p. 51. 



PART II 

VIRGINIA DID NOT SECEDE IN ORDER TO EX- 
TEND SLAVERY INTO THE TERRITORIES, 
OR TO PREVENT ITS THREATENED 
DESTRUCTION WITHIN HER 



OWN BORDERS 



Ill 

Virginia's Colonial Record with Respect to Slavery 

President Lincoln in his inaugural address declared : — 
"One section of our country believes slavery is right and 
ought to be extended, while the other believes slavery is 
wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only 
substantial dispute." 

Other voices proclaimed that there existed an "irre- 
pressible conflict" between the North and the South in 
which the abolition or maintenance of slavery was the gage 
of battle. The two assertions may be combined and the 
question considered whether Virginia seceded either to 
extend slavery into the territories or to perpetuate the 
institution within her borders. 

In considering these questions it will be well to review 
Virginia's record with respect to slavery both during the 
period of her existence as a colony and her career as a 
state; 

To collate the sentiments of her great sons antagonistic 
to the institution; 

To show the small number of her citizens holding slaves 
as compared with the great company of those who pos- 
sessed no such interest; 

To note the injurious effects upon her prosperity result- 
ing from the presence of the institution ; 

To summarize what were considered the almost in- 
superable difficulties which embarrassed every plan of 
emancipation — difficulties that were augmented and in- 

15 



16 SLAVERY IN VIRGINIA 

tensified by the bitterness and partizanship with which, 
during the three decades immediately preceding the Civil 
War, the subject had become invested; 

To present the situation with respect to the controversy 
at the time Virginia seceded from the Union; and finally, 

To consider the effects, if any, upon her position, of 
President Lincoln's Proclamations of Emancipation issued 
subsequent thereto. 

African slaves were first brought to Virginia in 1619 by 
a Dutch vessel. George W. Williams, the negro historian 
of his race in America, says, "It is due to the Virginia 
colony to say that the slaves were forced upon them." 1 

Though slaves were thus introduced as early as 1619, 
it was not until 1661 that the institution of slavery was 
recognized in Virginia by statute law. 2 

For a long period after their first introduction, very 
few slaves were imported. At the end of the first half- 
century there were only some two thousand, and as late 
as the year 1715 they numbered only about twenty-five 
thousand. In the sixty years, however, immediately 
preceding the Revolution, they came in ever-increasing 
numbers, so that at the latter date they almost equalled 
the white population of the colony. 3 

With the great increase of this element in the population, 
the colonists were quick to realize their danger 4 and 
numerous acts were passed by the Colonial Legislature 
designed to lessen, if not actually to stop, further im- 

1 History of the Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. 1, p. 119. 

^History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 34. 

^History of the Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. 1, p. 133. 

4 A letter from the celebrated Colonel William Byrd of "West- 
over" to Lord Egmont, under date of July 12, 1736, will serve to 
illustrate this fact. Colonel Byrd writes, "Your Lord's opinion 
concerning Rum and Negroes is certainly very just, and your 



VIRGINIA'S COLONIAL RECORD 17 

portations. Alluding to these efforts of the Virginia 
people, Mr. Bancroft says: 

"Again and again they had passed laws restraining the 
importation of negroes from Africa, but their laws were 
disallowed. How to prevent them from protecting them- 
selves against the increase of the overwhelming evil was 
debated by the King in Council ; and on the 10th of Decem- 
ber, 1770, he issued an instruction under his own hand 
commanding the Governor ' upon pain of the highest dis- 
pleasure, to assent to no laws by which the importation of 
slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed/" 1 

Edmund Burke, in his speech on conciliating America, 
in response to the suggestion that the slaves might be 
freed and used against the colonies, said, 

" Dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little 
suspect the offer of freedom from the very nation which 

excluding both of them from your colony of Georgia will be very 
happy. . . . 

I wish, my Lord, we could be blessed with the same prohibition. 
They import so many negroes here that I fear this colony will some 
time or other be confirmed by the name of New Guinea. I am 
sensible of the many bad consequences of multiplying the Ethi- 
opians amongst us. They blow up the pride and ruin the Industry 
of our White Feople, who seeing a Rank of poor creatures below 
them, detest work for fear it should make them look like slaves. 
Then that poverty which will ever attend upon Idleness disposes 
them as much to pilfer as it does the Portuguese. . . . 

But these private mischiefs are nothing if compared to the 
publick danger. It were therefore worth the consideration of a 
British Parliament, my Lord, to put an end to this unchristian 
traffick of making merchandise of our Fellow Creatures. At least, 
the further importation of them into our Colony should be pro- 
hibited lest they prove as troublesome and dangerous elsewhere 
as they have been lately in Jamaica. ... All these matters 
duly considered, I wonder the Legislature will Indulge a few 
ravenous traders to the danger of the Publick Safety." (From 
Unpublished Byrd Manuscripts at Lower Brandon, Va.) 

^History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. Ill, p. 410. 



18 EFFORTS TO EXCLUDE SLAVES 

had sold them to their present masters — from that nation, 
one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is 
their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic. 
An offer of freedom from England would come rather 
oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is 
refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a 
cargo of three hundred Angola Negroes." 1 

In addition to legislative enactments, appeals were 
addressed directly to the throne. But the great per- 
sonages interested in the slave trade proved more in- 
fluential with the King than the prayers of his imperilled 
people. There is something at once pathetic and pro- 
phetic in the appeals made by these Virginians to their 
sovereign against the slave trade. The petition presented 
by the House of Burgesses in 1772 recites: 

"We implore your Majesty's paternal assistance in avert- 
ing a calamity of a most alarming nature. The im- 
portation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of 
Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great in- 
humanity, and under its present encouragement we have 
too much reason to fear will endanger the very existence 
of your Majesty's American dominions. We are sensible 
that some of your Majesty's subjects may reap emolu- 
ments from this sort of traffic, but when we consider that 
it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with more 
useful inhabitants and may in time have the most destruc- 
tive influence, we presume to hope that the interests of 
a few will be disregarded when placed in competition 
with the security and happiness of such numbers of your 
Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects. We, therefore, be- 
seech your Majesty to remove all these restraints on your 
Majesty's Governor in this colony which inhibits their 
assenting to such laws as might check so pernicious a 
consequence." 2 

1 Burke's Works, Little, Brown & Co.'s. Ed., Vol. II, p. 135. 

2 Journal of House of Burgesses, p. 131, and Tucker's Black- 
stone, appendix, note H. Vol. II, p. 351. 



ORIGINAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 19 

This petition was reported from a Committee of the 
House which included Edmund Pendleton, Richard Henry 
Lee, Benjamin Harrison and others of equal prominence. 1 

But the King and Ministers continued to turn deaf 
ears and except with respect to more moderate measures 
the Royal Veto was interposed to annul all anti-slavery 
laws. 

Chief among the causes which aroused the opposition 
of the Virginia colonists and placed them in the forefront 
of the Revolution was the course of the King with respect 
to this momentous subject. When Thomas Jefferson 
came to write the Declaration of Independence and to 
epitomize the grounds of indictment which the colonists 
presented against the British King, it was the latter's 
veto of the laws passed by Virginia to suppress the slave 
trade, and the active aid lent by his Government to force 
the captives of Africa upon his defenseless subjects, that 
evoked the fiercest arraignment in that historic document. 
Mr. Jefferson declared: 

" George the Third has waged cruel war against humanity 
itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty, 
in the persons of a distant people who never offended 
him; captivating and carrying them into slavery in another 
hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their trans- 
portation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium 
of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of 
Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where 
men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his 
negative by suppressing every legislative attempt to 
prohibit, or to restrain, this execrable commerce. And 
that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of dis- 
tinguished dye, he is now exciting these very people to 
rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of 

1 Defense of Virginia, Dabney, p. 48. 



20 REASONS FOR AMENDING DECLARATION 

which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on 
whom he obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes 
committed against the liberties of one people with crimes 
which he urges them to commit against the lives of 
another." 1 

"These words," says Mr. Bancroft, "expressed pre- 
cisely what had happened in Virginia." 

That this portion of the Declaration was stricken out by 
Congress before its formal presentation to the world does 
not negative the fact that, in thus declaring, Mr. Jefferson ** 
proclaimed the sentiments of his native state. It was 
ominous of her future experience with respect to this 
baneful subject, that the voice of Virginia was then silenced 
in deference to the states of the far South and certain of 
their Northern sisters. Mr. Jefferson has left upon record 
that this clause in the Declaration of Independence was 
stricken out: 

"In compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who 
had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, 
and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. 
Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender 
under these censures, for though their people had very 
few slaves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers 
of them to others." 2 

The biographers of Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, 
say: 

"The objections of South Carolina and Georgia sufficed 
to cause the erasure and suppression of the obnoxious 
paragraph. Nor were the Northern States guiltless; 
Newport was yet a great slave mart, and the commerce of 

^History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 445. 
Writings of Thomas Jefferson, P. L. Ford, 1892, p. 28. 



VIRGINIA'S ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS, 1774 21 

New England drew more advantages from the traffic than 
did the agriculture of the South." 1 

But the position of Virginia with respect to slavery and 
the vetoes of George III and the slave trade was not left 
to be determined- by unofficial utterances though coming 
from one of her greatest sons. As early as 1774 her people 
registered "their sentiments in the most varied and em- 
phatic forms. Mass meetings in many of the counties 
adopted resolutions, the purport and tenor of which may 
be gathered from those of Fairfax County, — " We take the 
opportunity of declaring our most earnest wishes to see 
an entire stop forever put to such a wicked, cruel and 
unnatural trade." 2 

In August, 1774, the Virginia Colonial Convention 
resolved: "We will neither ourselves import, nor pur- 
chase any slave or slaves imported by any other person, 
after the first day of November, next, either from Africa, 
the West Indies or any other place." 3 

On the fifth of September, 1774, when the Continental 
Congress assembled for the first time, her delegates in that 
body submitted the memorial known in history as, "A 
Summary View of the Rights of British America," in 
which the course of George III was arraigned and the 
sentiments of Virginia in regard to the slave trade declared 
as follows : 

"For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no 
conceivable reason at all, His Majesty has rejected laws of 
the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic 
slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, 
where it was, unhappily, introduced in their infant state. 

1 Abraham Lincoln, A History, Nicolay & Hay, Vol. I, p. 314. 
Suppression of the Slave Trade, DuBois, p. 43. 
s Idem, p. 43, 



22 VIRGINIA'S FIRST CONSTITUTION 

But, previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, 
it is necessary to exclude all further importations from 
Africa. Yet, our repeated requests to effect this by pro- 
hibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount 
to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by His 
Majesty's negative; thus preferring the immediate ad- 
vantage of a few British Corsairs to the lasting interests 
of the American States, and to the rights of human nature 
deeply wounded by this infamous practice." 1 

The representatives from Virginia in the Continental 
Congress were active in their efforts to secure the adoption 
of the Non-Importation Agreement which included a 
resolve to discontinue the slave trade and a pledge neither 
to hire "our vessels nor sell our commodities or manu- 
factures to those who are concerned in it." 2 

W. E. B. DuBois declares: " Virginia gave the slave 
trade a special prominence and was in reality the leading 
spirit to force her views on the Continental Congress."" 

Nor were these resolves of the Virginia people idle, for 
numerous evidences can be cited of the activity of her 
vigilance committees. At Norfolk, the committees, find- 
ing that one John Brown had purchased slaves from 
Jamaica, reported that we "hold up for your just indigna- 
tion Mr. John Brown, merchant of this place ... to the 
end . . . that every person may henceforth break off all 
dealings with him." 4 

Two years later, but before the proclamation of the 
Declaration of Independence, Virginia adopted a written 
constitution and Bill of Rights. In the preamble to the 
former there are set forth the reasons which influenced 

Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Ford, 1892, Vol. I, p. 440. 
2 Suppression of the Slave Trade, DuBois, p. 45. 
s Idem, p. 43. 
*Idem, p. 47. 



VIRGINIA'S BILL OF RIGHTS 23 

the colony to cast off her allegiance to the British King. 
Among the foremost was his action in " perverting his 
kingly powers," . . . "into a detestable and insupport- 
able tyranny by putting his negative on laws the most 
wholesome and necessary for the public good"; and again, 
for "prompting our negroes to rise in arms among 
us — those very negroes whom, by an inhuman use of 
his negative, he hath refused us permission to exclude 
by law." 1 

Her Bill of Rights opened with the then novel and far 
reaching declaration: 

" That all men are by nature equally free and independ- 
ent, and have certain inherent rights, of which when they 
enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any contract 
deprive or divest their posterity; namely the enjoyment 
of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possess- 
ing property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and 
safety." 3 

With respect to this great document, Mr. Bancroft 
declares : 

" Other colonies had framed Bills of Rights in reference 
to their relations with Britain ; Virginia moved from char- 
ters and customs to primal principles; from the alterca- 
tion about facts to the contemplation of immutable truth. 
She summoned the eternal laws of man's being to protest 
against all tyranny. The English Petition of Right, in 
1688, was historic and retrospective; the Virginia declara- 
tion came out of the heart of nature and announced govern- 
ing principles for all peoples in all times. It was the 
voice of reason going forth to speak a new political world 
into being. At the bar of humanity Virginia gave the 
name and fame of her sons as hostages that her public 

Wetting's Statutes, Vol. IX, pp. 112-113, 
2 Idem, p. 109. 



24 CANONS OF LIBERTY 

life should show a likeness to the highest ideals of right 
and equal freedom among men." 1 

This Bill of Rights was incorporated in every subsequent 
constitution of Virginia and is to-day a part of her organic 
law. Two months after its first adoption came the Declara- 
tion of American Independence. The words of Mason: 
" That all men are by nature equally free and independent," 
are re-echoed in the words of Jefferson, "That all men 
are created equal," and both declare that among the 
inalienable rights of man are "life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness." 

To these principles, Virginia acknowledged allegiance; 
to the Bill of Rights, by the unanimous vote of her Con- 
stitutional Convention; and to the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence by the united voices of her delegates in the 
Continental Congress. The institution of slavery could 
not square with these great canons. Henceforth its 
existence in Virginia could be justified only by the diffi- 
culties and dangers attending its abolition. 

These recitals bring us down to the close of Virginia's 
life as a colony, and the assumption by her people of the 
rights and obligations of statehood. In the more than 
one hundred and fifty years of her colonial existence — 
despite protests, appeals and statutes — the inflowing tide 
from Africa had continued, so that out of a population of 
some six hundred thousand souls, over two-fifths were 
negro slaves. It was amid such conditions that Virginia 
met the problems incident to her birth into statehood, bore 
her part in founding the Republic, furnished her quota of 
soldiers to resist the armies of Great Britain, and held 
with fixed determination her ever advancing border line 
against the craft and courage of the Red Men. 

^History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 419. 



IV 

Virginia's Statute Abolishing the African Slave 

Trade and Her Part in Enacting the 

Ordinance of 1787 

Foremost among the laws enacted by her General 
Assembly after Virginia's declaration of independence from 
British rule was her celebrated statute prohibiting the 
slave trade. This act was passed in 1778 — thus ante- 
dating by thirty years the like action of Great Britain. 
By this law, it was provided, "that from and after the 
passing of this act no slaves shall hereafter be imported 
into this commonwealth by sea or land, nor shall any 
slaves so imported be sold or bought by any person what- 
soever." The statute imposed a fine of one thousand 
pounds upon the person importing them for each slave 
imported, and also a fine of five hundred pounds upon 
any person buying or selling any such slave for each slave 
so bought or sold. The crime of bringing in slaves is still 
further guarded against by a provision which declares that 
every slave "shall upon such importation become free." 1 
Of this act, Mr. Ballagh, in his History of Slavery in Vir- 
ginia, says, " Virginia thus had the honor of being the first 
political community in the civilized modern world to pro- 
hibit the pernicious traffic." 2 

Next in the sequence of great events linked with this 
subject was the work of her sons in the preparation and 

^Hening's Statutes, Vol. IX, p. 471. 

2 History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 23. 

25 



26 VIRGINIA'S CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST 

adoption of the ordinance for the government of the north- 
west territory. This imperial domain from which have 
been created the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan 
and Wisconsin had been conquered by her soldiers, led 
by her son, George Rogers Clark, acting under a com- 
mission of her Governor, Patrick Henry, and her Council. 1 
"Virginians/' says Mr. Bancroft, "in the service of 
Virginia." Virginia claimed the country as comprised 
within the limits fixed by her colonial charter. Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut and New York also asserted claims, 
but, as John Fiske declares, "It was Virginia that had 
actually conquered the disputed territory." 2 And again 
he writes, "Virginia gave up a magnificent and princely 
territory of which she was actually in possession." 3 When, 
by the valor of her sons, Virginia had won the land from 
the English and the Indians, she silenced the murmurings 
of sister states and consummated the efforts for union 
by formally relinquishing the great domain to the common 
weal. 

The day that Virginia's deed of cession, March the first, 
1784, was accepted by the Continental Congress, Mr. 
Jefferson reported his bill — the Ordinance of 1784. This 
measure was one of far reaching importance in that it 
provided not only for many of the governmental needs 
of this great territory, but declared that after the year 
1800, slavery should never exist in any portion of the vast 
domain west of a line drawn north and south between 
Lake Erie and the Spanish dominions of Florida. Had 
this clause been retained in the ordinance, slavery would 
have been excluded not only from the five states created 

'Life of Patrick Henry, W. W. Henry, Vol. I, p. 583. 
^Critical Period of American History, Fiske, p. 191. 
3 Idem, p. 195. 



ORDINANCE OF 1787 27 

out of the northwest territory but from the country south 
of it and from which were subsequently formed the states 
of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. 

This provision of the ordinance, however, failed of 
adoption — the votes of six states being recorded in its favor, 
one less than the requisite majority. Mr. Jefferson's 
colleagues present, Hardy and Mercer, refused to join 
him in voting for this novel enactment. Its failure was 
a matter of profound regret to its author. In a letter to 
M. de Munier, Mr. Jefferson wrote: 

"The voice of a single individual of the state which 
was divided, or one of those which were of the negative, 
would have prevented this abominable crime from spread- 
ing itself over the new country. Thus we see the fate 
of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man 
and Heaven was silent in that awful moment." 1 

This ambition of Mr. Jefferson was not destined to 
complete defeat. Three years later, the now celebrated 
Ordinance of 1787 was enacted into law. "No one was 
more active," says Mr. Fiske, "in bringing about this 
result than William Grayson of Virginia, who was earnestly 
supported by Lee." 2 

Mr. Bancroft says: 

"Thomas Jefferson first summoned Congress to pro- 
hibit slavery in all the territory of the United States; 
Rufus King lifted up the measure when it lay almost 
lifeless on the ground, and suggested the immediate 
instead of the prospective prohibition; a Congress com- 
posed of five Southern States to one from New England 
and two from the Middle States, headed by William Gray- 
son, supported by Richard Henry Lee, and using Nathan 

Writings of Jefferson, Ford, Vol. IV, p. 181. 
Critical Period of American History, Fiske, p. 205. 



28 VIRGINIA CONFIRMS ORDINANCE OF 1787 

Dane as scribe, carried the measure to the goal in the 
amended form in which King had caused it to be referred 
to a committee; and, as Jefferson had proposed, placed 
it under the sanction of an irrevocable compact." 1 

The ordinance as passed contained many provisions 
in addition to those set out in Virginia's deed of cession. 
It was necessary, therefore, that Virginia should by proper 
enactment reaffirm her deed. The General Assembly 
of Virginia at its next session accordingly passed an act 
fixing for all time the validity of both deed and ordinance. 2 
Mr. Bancroft says: 

"A powerful committee on which were Carrington, 
Monroe, Edmund Randolph and Grayson, successfully 
brought forward the bill by which Virginia confirmed 
the ordinance for the colonization of all the territory 
then in the possession of the United States, by freemen 
alone." 3 

Thus the old commonwealth which had won the land 
from England and the Indians bore a foremost part in the 
legislative work by which slavery was forever excluded from 
the empire north of the Ohio River. 

'History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p. 290. 

2 Hening's Statutes, Vol. XII, p. 780. 

^History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p. 291. 



V 

Foreign Slave Trade and the Constitution: 
Virginia's Position 

The supreme opportunity for suppressing the importa- 
tion of slaves and thus hastening the day of emancipation 
came with the adoption of the Federal Constitution. As 
we have seen, with every increase in the number of slaves 
the difficulties and dangers of emancipation were multiplied. 
The hope of emancipation rested in stopping their further 
importation and dispersing throughout the land those 
who had already found a home in our midst. To put 
an end to "this pernicious traffic" was therefore the 
supreme duty of the hour, but despite Virginia's protests 
and appeals the foreign slave trade was legalized by the 
Federal Constitution for an additional period of twenty 
years. The nation knew not the day of its visitation — 
with blinded eyes and reckless hand it sowed the dragon's 
teeth from which have sprung the conditions and prob- 
lems which even to-day tax the thought and conscience 
of the American people. 

This action of the convention is declared by Mr. Fiske, 
to have been "a bargain between New England and the 
far South." 

"New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut," 
he adds, " consented to the prolonging of the foreign slave 
trade for twenty years, or until 1808; and in return 
South Carolina and Georgia consented to the clause em- 
powering Congress to pass Navigation Acts and other- 

29 



30 OPPOSITION TO FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE 

wise regulate commerce by a simple majority of votes." 1 
George W. Williams, the negro historian, avers that, 

"Thus, by an understanding or, as Gouverneur Morris 
called it, 'a bargain' between the commercial representa- 
tives of the Northern States and the delegates of South 
Carolina and Georgia, and in spite of the opposition of 
Maryland and Virginia, the unrestricted power of Congress 
to enact Navigation Laws was conceded to the Northern 
merchants; and to the Carolina rice planters, as an equiva- 
lent, twenty years' continuance of the African slave trade." 2 

Continuing, Mr. Fiske says, "This compromise was 
carried against the sturdy opposition of Virginia." George 
Mason spoke the sentiments of the Mother-Commonwealth 
when in a speech against this provision of the constitution, 
which reads like prophecy and judgment, he said: 

" This infernal traffic originated in the avarice of British 
merchants. The British Government constantly checked 
the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it. The present 
question concerns, not the importing states alone, but 
the whole Union. . . . Maryland and Virginia, he said, 
had already prohibited the importation of slaves expressly. 
North Carolina had done the same in substance. All this 
would be in vain if South Carolina and Georgia be at liberty 
to import. The Western people are already calling out for 
slaves for their new lands; and will fill that countiy with 
slaves if they can be got through South Carolina and Georgia. 
Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor de- 
spise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the 
emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen 
a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on 
manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. 
They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As 
nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, 
they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes 

^Critical Period of American History, Fiske, p. 264. 

2 History of Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. I, p. 426. 



FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE LEGALIZED 31 

and effects, Providence punishes National sins by National 
calamities. He lamented that some of our Eastern 
brethren had, from a lust of gain, embarked in this nefarious 
traffic. As to the states being in possession of the right 
to import, this was the case with many other rights, now 
to be properly given up. He held it essential, in every 
point of view, that the General Government should have 
power to prevent the increase of slavery." 

"But these prophetic words of George Mason," adds 
Mr. Fiske, "were powerless against the combination of 
New England and the far South." 1 

Some seven decades later, Virginia erected under the 
shadow of her Capitol a bronze statue to commemorate 
the fame of this illustrious son. 

Governor Randolph and Mr. Madison earnestly sup- 
ported their colleague, the former declaring that this 
feature rendered the constitution so odious as to make 
doubtful his ability to support it; and the latter asserting, 
"Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be 
apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a 
term will be more dishonorable to the American character 
than to say nothing about it in the constitution." 2 

Thus it was by the votes of New Hampshire, Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, South 
Carolina and Georgia, and against the votes of New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia, that the slave 
trade was legalized by the National Government for the 
period from 1787 to 1808. 

If it be argued that this provision of the constitution 
offered no menace to Virginia or to any other state not 
willing to admit the importations, the reply is obvious 

^Critical Period of American History, Fiske, p. 264. 
2 Life and Times of Madison, Rives, Vol. II, p. 446. 



32 DISASTERS RESULTING THEREFROM 

that this action of the National Government was deplorable 
because it placed the imprimatur of its supreme law upon 
the morality as well as legality of the slave trade; and 
further, because with the advent from abroad of every 
additional slave the difficulties and dangers of emancipating 
those in the South — their natural habitat — was increased. 
New England and the North were not menaced. Climatic 
and economic conditions, as well as their local laws, raised 
a protecting barrier. Beneath the hot skies of the South — 
where flourished the much sought for crops of cotton, rice 
and sugar cane — was the land to which with unerring 
instinct the Trader piloted his craft freighted with igno- 
rance and woe. As long, therefore, as one port remained 
open and the National Government sanctioned the traffic, 
just so long would the inflowing tide continue, each new 
arrival adding to the difficulties of the situation. 

Thus the nation, under its new charter, entered upon its 
career handicapped by the curse of slavery and further 
menaced by the new lease of life accorded the slave trade. 
Upon Virginia the maximum of burden rested. She had 
within her borders nearly one-third of the whole slave 
population of the Union. Hers was the ceaseless task of 
guarding against further importations from home or 
abroad; of devising some practicable plan for gradually 
emancipating the slaves in her midst, and meanwhile to 
continue day by day the work of teaching these children 
of the Dark Continent an intelligible language, the use of 
tools, the necessity for labor and the rudiments of morality 
and religion. 



VI 

The Foreign Slave Trade — Virginia's Efforts 
to Abolish it 

Despite Virginia's failure to secure the immediate sup- 
pression of the foreign slave trade, her sons were active 
in their efforts to restrict its growth and at the earliest 
possible moment to drive the slave ships from the seas. 

In the first Congress under the constitution, April, 
1789, Josiah Parker of Virginia sought to amend the 
Tariff Bill under discussion by inserting a clause levying 
an import tax of ten dollars upon every slave brought into 
the country. 

"He was sony the constitution prevented Congress 
from prohibiting the importation altogether. It was 
contrary to Revolution principles and ought not to be 
permitted. ... He hoped Congress would do all in their 
power to restore to human nature its inherent privileges; 
to wipe off, if possible, the stigma under which America 
labored; to do away with the inconsistence in our 
principles justly charged upon us; and to show by our 
actions, the pure beneficence of the doctrine held out to 
the world in our Declaration of Independence." 

Mr. Parker was supported by two other Virginians, 
Theodoric Bland and James Madison, the latter declaring- 

" The clause in the constitution allowing a tax to be im- 
posed though the traffic could not be prohibited for 
twenty years, was inserted, he believed, for the very pur- 
pose of enabling Congress to give some testimony of the 
sense of America with respect to the African trade. By 

33 



34 THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE 

expressing a national disapprobation of that trade it is 
to be hoped we may destroy it, and so save ourselves from 
reproaches and our posterity from the imbecility ever 
attendant on a country filled with slaves." 1 

But notwithstanding these appeals the movement was 
defeated, though the discussion was evidently fruitful 
in bringing to the attention of the country that under 
the constitution, Congress had authority not only to levy 
a tax of ten dollars per capita on slaves imported, but to 
prohibit citizens of the United States from engaging in 
the traffic with foreign countries. These latter conclusions 
were formally embodied in a report made to Congress on 
the 23rd of March, 1790, by a committee of which Josiah 
Parker of Virginia was one of the leading members. 
The adoption of this report stirred the opponents of the 
slave trade to greater activity and numerous petitions 
were presented at the next session of Congress from Mary- 
land and Virginia and almost every one of the Northern 
States. In the Virginia petition, the slave trade was 
denounced as " an outrageous violation of one of the most 
essential rights of human nature." 2 

In his message to Congress, at its session, 1806-7, Mr. 
Jefferson, then President, brought to the attention of 
that body the fact that under the constitution the time 
was at hand when the African slave trade could be abolished, 
and urged the speedy enactment of such a law. He said: 

"I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach 
of a period at which you may interpose your authority 
constitutionally to withdraw the citizens of the United 
States from all further participation in those violations 
of human rights which have so long been continued on the 

Annals of Congress, Vol. I, col. 336. 
2 Suppression of the Slave Trade, DuBois, p. 80. 



VIRGINIA'S EFFORTS TO ABOLISH IT 35 

unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, 
the reputation and the best interests of our country have 
long been eager to proscribe." 

An act was accordingly passed prohibiting the slave 
trade and imposing forfeitures and fines upon ships and 
ships' crews engaged in the traffic. The law also forfeited 
slaves so illegally imported and provided that the dis- 
position of such slaves should be left to the states wherein 
they were found. 

The African slave trade had flourished so long under the 
patronage and support of the leading nations of Christen- 
dom and with the acquiescence, at least, of the United 
States during the previous twenty years, that it was 
difficult by simple statutory enactment to put an end to 
the nefarious traffic. It will be seen, therefore, that the 
trade continued from time to time between the coast of 
Africa, the United States, West Indies and Brazil, despite 
the efforts of the Federal authorities to enforce the laws 
made for its suppression. In all these efforts Virginians, 
holding official places, were most earnest and energetic 
in their warfare against the trade. 

In his message to Congress, December 5, 1810, President 
Madison declares: 

" Among the commercial abuses still committed under 
the American flag ... it appears that American citizens 
are instrumental in carrying on the traffic in enslaved 
Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and 
in defiance of those of their own country," 

and urges Congress to devise further means for suppressing 
the evil. 

Again, in his message to Congress of December 3, 1816, 
President Madison brings the subject to the attention of 



36 THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE 

Congress and urges the enactment of such amendments 
as will suppress violations of the statute. 

In the progress of time, certain slaves brought into the 
country in violation of the act were captured and sold, 
thus in effect defeating one of the prime objects of the 
law, which was to prevent any increase in the slave popula- 
tion. Thereupon, at the session of Congress, 1819, under 
the leadership of Charles Fenton Mercer and John Floyd 
of Virginia a bill was passed amending the existing statute, 
requiring the President to use armed cruisers off the coasts 
of Africa and America to suppress the trade, providing 
for the immediate return to Africa of any imported slaves, 
directing the President to appoint agents to receive and 
care for them on their return and appropriating One 
Hundred Thousand Dollars to carry out the general pur- 
poses of the law. 1 

In the House, on motion of Hugh Nelson, of Virginia, 
the death penalty was fixed as the punishment for violating 
the law, but this provision was stricken out by the Senate. 2 

In February, 1823, Charles Fenton Mercer, a repre- 
sentative from Virginia, in the House, secured the adoption 
of the following joint resolution: 

" RESOLVED, That the President of the United States 
be requested to enter upon and to prosecute from time 
to time such negotiations with the maritime powers of 
Europe and America as he may deem expedient for the 
effectual abolition of the African slave trade and its ultimate 
denunciation as Piracy under the laws of Nations by the 
consent of the civilized world." 3 

Mr. Mercer, in urging the adoption of this resolution, 

1 Annals of Congress, 15th Congress, 2nd section, part I, pp. 442-3. 
Suppression of the Slave Trade, DuBois, p. 120, Note 3. 
3 Annals of Congress, 17th Congress, second session, pp. 435 and 
928. 



VIRGINIA'S EFFORTS TO ABOLISH IT 37 

denounced the African slave trade "as a crime begun on 
a barbarous shore, claimed by no civilized state, and 
subject to no moral law; a remnant of ancient barbarism, 
a curse extended to the New World by the colonial policy 
of the Old." 1 

Mr. Mercer supplemented his congressional action by 
visits made at his own expense to the Governments of the 
Old World to urge upon them the adoption of the policy 
set forth in his resolution.' 

It was early appreciated that unless at least a qualified 
"right of search" was accorded the war vessels of the 
leading nations engaged in the effort to suppress the slave 
trade, these efforts would be seriously hindered. Ac- 
cordingly the lower house of Congress, in May, 1821, 
under the leadership of Charles Fenton Mercer, from 
whose committee the resolution was reported, adopted 
the recommendation that a "right of search" be accorded 
the British Government in return for a like privilege 
accorded the United States. 3 This resolution, however, 
was defeated in the Senate. 

Subsequently President Monroe submitted to Congress 
the draft of a treaty with England embodying this provi- 
sion. In a special message, under date of May 21, 1824, 
he gave at length his reasons for approving the treaty — 
saying: 

"Should this convention be adopted there is every 
reason to believe that it will be the commencement of a 
system destined to accomplish the entire abolition of the 
slave trade." 

1 Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Wilson, Vol. I, p. 106. 
9 The Confederate Cause and Conduct in the War Between the States, 
McGuire and Christian, p. 17. 

Suppression of Slave Trade, DuBois, p. 137. 



38 THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE 

Unfortunately, the ratification of this treaty was de- 
feated in the Senate, and not until 1862 was the " right of 
search" between Great Britain and America established. 

In his message to Congress June 1, 1841, President 
Tyler writes : 

"I shall also at the proper season invite your attention 
to the statutory enactments for the suppression of the 
slave trade which may require to be rendered more effective 
in their provisions. There is reason to believe that the 
traffic is on the increase . . The highest consideration of 
public honor as well as the strongest promptings of human- 
ity require a resort to the most vigorous efforts to suppress 
the trade." 

Again, in his message of December 7, 1841, President 
Tyler writes: 

"I invite your attention to existing laws for the sup- 
pression of the African slave trade, and recommend all 
such alterations as may give to them greater force and 
efficiency. That the American flag is grossly abused 
by the abandoned and profligate of other nations is but 
too probable." 

In 1842, in the preparation of the Ashburton Treaty 
President Tyler secured the insertion of a clause providing 
for the maintenance and co-operation of squadrons of the 
United States and Great Britain off the coast of Africa 
for the suppression of the trade. 1 

The ratification of this treaty was urged upon the 
Senate by the President in his message of August 11, 1842, 
as conducive to the abolition of what he termed the "un- 
lawful and inhuman traffic." 

Though Brazil, by statute, prohibited the African slave 
trade in 1831, yet the traffic continued and in this trade 

^Letters and Times of the Tylers, Tyler, Vol. II, p. 219. 



VIRGINIA'S EFFORTS TO ABOLISH IT 39 

citizens of the United States as ship owners, or crew, 
were engaged despite the Federal statutes against such a 
practice. Henry A. Wise of Virginia, Consul at Rio 
Janeiro, made frequent and earnest reports to the State 
Department calling the attention of the authorities to 
these violations. Under date of February 18th, 1845, 
he writes to the Secretary of State at Washington : 

" I beseech, I implore the President of the United States 
to take a decided stand on this subject. You have no 
conception of the bold effrontery and the flagrant outrages 
of the African slave trade, and of the shameless manner 
in which its worst crimes are licensed here, and every 
patriot in our land would blush for our country did he 
know and see, as I do, how our citizens sail and sell our 
flag to the uses and abuses of that accursed practice." 1 

In his message to Congress, under date of December 
4th, 1849, President Taylor writes: 

"Your attention is earnestly invited to an amendment 
of our existing laws relating to the African slave trade 
with a view to the effectual suppression of that barbarous 
traffic. It is not to be denied that this trade is still in 
part carried on by means of vessels built in the United States 
and owned or navigated by some of our citizens." 

The foregoing recitals will serve to illustrate the un- 
compromising attitude of hostility on the part of leading 
Virginians toward the African slave trade. They sought 
by Federal statutes and concerted action with foreign 
nations to drive the pernicious traffic from the seas. They 
denounced the trade as inhuman, because it stimulated 
men to reduce free men to slavery and then entailed upon 
slaves the horrors and dangers of the "middle passage." 
They resolutely opposed any addition to the slave popula- 

] American Slave Trade, Spear, p. 81. 



40 THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE 

tion of America because profoundly convinced that every 
such importation was fraught with menace to the social, 
economic and moral well-being of the nation and rendered 
more difficult the emancipation of those who had already 
been brought to her shores. As we have seen, her repre- 
sentatives at the first meeting of the Continental Congress 
had defined Virginia's position in the notable memorial 
which declared: 

"The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object 
of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily intro- 
duced in their infant state. But, previous to the en- 
franchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to 
exclude all further importations from Africa/' 1 

This was the philosophy of the situation as defined by 
the great statesmen of the Revolutionary period and to 
their views their ablest successors in Virginia adhered down 
to the outbreak of the Civil War. 

Writings of Jefferson, Ford, Vol. I, p. 440. 



VII 

Some Virginia Statutes with Respect to Slavery 

Having by her act of 1778, prohibiting the importation 
of slaves, provided against any increase in their number 
from without, Virginia at the close of the Revolution pro- 
ceeded to legislate with respect to those already in her midst, 
permitting and encouraging their gradual emancipation. 

Under British rule, slaveholders were forbidden to 
manumit their slaves, except with the permission of the 
Council. 1 In 1782, the General Assembly of Virginia 
enacted a law, under which slaveholders were authorized 
to emancipate their slaves by deed or will duly made and 
recorded. 2 

By an act passed in 1785, it was provided that slaves 
brought into the state and remaining twelve months 
should be free. 3 

In 1787, acts were passed validating certain manumis- 
sions made by wills prior to 1782, the General Assembly 
declaring that it was "just and proper" that "the benevo- 
lent intentions" of the testators should be carried into 
effect.* 

In 1788, an act was passed making the enslaving of the 
child of free blacks a crime punishable by death upon the 
scaffold. 5 

Wening's Statutes, Vol. IV, p. 132. 
2 Hening's Statutes, Vol. XI, p. 39. 
'Hening's Statutes, Vol. XII, p. 182. 
iHening's Statutes, Vol. XII, pp. 611 and 613. 
h Idem, p. 531. 

41 



42 STATUTE PERMITTING EMANCIPATIONS 

In 1795, an act was passed allowing a slave to sue in 
forma pauperis in any court proceedings affecting his 
freedom. He might make complaint to the nearest 
magistrate or court and the owner was then required to 
give bond to permit the slave to attend the next term of 
the court and maintain his cause. If the owner failed or 
refused to comply, the slave was taken into the custody 
of the state, counsel was assigned to defend his cause 
and every process of the law allowed him without cost. 1 
Following the adoption of the foregoing laws, the General 
Assembly, in 1803, passed an act to still further safeguard 
the rights of negroes who had secured their freedom. By 
this last act the authorities were required to keep registers 
in each county in which were to be recorded the names 
of all the free negroes and also the names of slaves whose 
right to manumission would accrue upon the death of the 
person having only an estate for life in such slaves. 

The effect of these acts facilitating and encouraging 
manumissions at length began to appear. At the close 
of the Revolution there were less than three thousand 
free negroes in Virginia. 2 In the ten years next succeed- 
ing, they reached thirteen thousand, and the census of 
1810 records their number at thirty thousand, five hundred 
and seventy. Here was a new problem — the presence in 
a state dominated by white men of a considerable body 
of negroes possessing neither the privileges of the whites 
nor amenable to the restrictions imposed upon the great 
mass of the blacks. As a result of these conditions, acts 
were passed in 1806 providing that no slaves thereafter 
manumitted should remain in Virginia. In 1819 an act 
was passed authorizing the County Courts to permit such 

l History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 123. 
2 History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 121. 



STATUTE RESTRICTING EMANCIPATION 43 

as were " sober, peaceful, orderly and industrious to remain 
in the state." 1 Later, it was provided by statute that 
all slaves thereafter manumitted should leave the state 
within twelve months from the date of their emancipation. 
Thenceforward slaveholders were accorded the right to 
manumit their slaves, subject to the claims of their creditors 
and to the obligation upon the former slaves of going 
beyond the state within twelve months following their 
manumission. 

While these last mentioned statutes embarrassed the 
work of emancipation, they stimulated the sentiment in 
favor of colonization. However, despite the difficulties 
which confronted them, slaveholders still continued to 
emancipate their slaves and hostility to the institution 
of slavery — the conviction that it was a burden upon the 
commonwealth — became more and more widespread among 
the people. The growth of these sentiments continued 
until the year 1832. The Rev. Philip Slaughter, a writer 
with pro-slavery sympathies, records: 

" That was the culminating point — the flood tide of anti- 
slavery feeling which had been gradually rising for more 
than a century in Virginia was then precipitated upon us 
before its time by the Southampton convulsion." 2 

To the disastrous effects upon public sentiment of this 
tragic event which occurred in August, 1831, must be 
added the reactionary influence of the Abolitionists, who 
now began their work of agitation and their arraignment, 
not simply of slavery nor of slaveholders, but of the 
morality and civilization of every community in which 
the institution existed. The failure, too, of the General 

'Idem, p. 125. 

2 The Virginian History of African Colonization, Slaughter, p. 55. 



44 STATUTE RESTRICTING EMANCIPATION 

Assembly of Virginia at its session of 1832 to adopt any 
plan for the gradual abolition of slavery or for the removal 
beyond the state of the free negroes then within her borders 
was also strongly reactionary. Despite the ability and 
influence of the anti-slavery leaders in that body no 
remedial legislation was adopted and thousands of the 
people accepted the result as proof of the fact that the 
practical difficulties in the way of emancipation were 
such as to shut out the hope of its accomplishment. 



VIII 

The Movement in the Virginia Legislature of 1832 
to Abolish Slavery in the State 

The Southampton Insurrection, which occurred in 
August, 1831, was one of those untoward incidents which 
so often marked the history of slavery. Under the leader- 
ship of one Nat Turner, a negro preacher, of some educa- 
tion, who felt that he had been called of God to deliver 
his race from bondage, the negroes attacked the whites 
at night and before the assault could be suppressed fifty- 
seven whites, principally women and children, had been 
killed. This deplorable event assumed an even more 
portentous aspect when it was realized that the leader 
was a slave to whom the privilege of education had been 
accorded and that one of his lieutenants was a free negro. 
In addition there existed a widespread belief among the 
whites that influences and instigations from without the 
state were responsible for the insurrection. 

The General Assembly of Virginia met in regular session 
in December, 1831, and the effect upon the popular mind 
of this tragic occurrence was evidenced in the numerous 
petitions presented praying for the removal beyond the 
state of all free negroes, or the enactment of such laws as 
should provide for the abolition of slavery. The institution 
itself, the feasibility of its abolition, the status of the free 
negroes, the danger to the state from their presence, were 
thus brought before the Legislature. It was a body con- 
taining many able men but elected without reference to 

45 



46 LEADERS OF THE MOVEMENT 

this great subject, and with no previous interchange of 
views or formulation of plans among the advocates 
of reform. The discussions which followed were more 
notable for the fierce arraignment of the institution than 
for the presentation of practical plans for its abolition. 

Henry Wilson, in his Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in 
America, says of this discussion: 

"It was one of the ablest, most eloquent and brilliant 
debates that ever took place in the Legislature of any of 
the states. Most of those who participated in it were 
young and rising men who afterward achieved high posi- 
tions and commanding influence." 1 

Mr. Ballagh records that: 

" Day after day multitudes thronged the Capitol to hear 
the speeches. The Assembly in its zeal for the discussion 
set aside all prudential considerations, such as the possible 
effect of incendiary utterances that might make the slave 
believe his lot one of injustice and cruelty, and so give 
him the excuse of a revolt, or might encourage further 
aggressions by Northern Abolitionists." 2 

Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Mr. Jefferson's grandson; 
Thomas Marshall, son of the Chief Justice; James Mc- 
Dowell, afterward Congressman and Governor; Charles J. 
Faulkner, afterward Congressman and Minister to France, 
and William Ballard Preston, afterward Congressman and 
Secretary of the Navy in President Taylor's Cabinet, were 
among the leaders of the anti-slavery men, and some idea 
may be formed of the character of their speeches from the 
extracts hereinafter cited. 

The principal discussion revolved around the report of 

l Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Wilson, Vol. I, 
p. 195. 

2 History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 138. 



PLANS PROPOSED 47 

a committee which declared " that it is inexpedient for the 
present Legislature to make any legislative enactment 
for the abolition of slavery," to which Mr. Preston moved 
the substitution of the word "expedient" for "inex- 
pedient," and Mr. Bryce moved, as a substitute for both, 
that the commonwealth should provide for the immediate 
removal of the negroes now free and those who may here- 
after become free "believing that this will absorb all of 
our present means." By a vote of 58 to 73 Mr. Preston's 
amendment was defeated/ and Mr. Bryce's substitute 
adopted by a vote of 65 to 58. 2 In line with this declara- 
tion, the House thereupon passed a bill which provided by 
a comprehensive and continuous system for the deporta- 
tion and colonization of the free negroes of the common- 
wealth, and such as thereafter might become free. The 
measure carried an appropriation of Thirty-five Thousand 
Dollars for the first year (1832) and Ninety Thousand 
Dollars for the year 1833 and was adopted by a vote of 
79 to 41. 3 In urging its passage, William H. Broadnax 
insisted that many owners "would manumit their slaves 
if means for their removal were furnished by the state, 
but who could not if the additional burden of removal 
were placed upon them." 4 This bill, so fraught with 
far-reaching consequences, was subsequently defeated in 
the Senate by one vote. 

Several plans for the gradual emancipation and deporta- 
tion of the slaves were brought forward and discussed, 
but all failed of enactment. Thomas R. Dew declares 
that, "no enlarged, wise or practical plan of operations 

^Journal of House of Delegates, 1832, p. 109. 

2 Idem, p. 110. 

3 Idem, p. 158. 

^Virginian History of African Colonization, Slaughter, p. 48. 



48 THE EFFECTS OF FAILURE 

was proposed by the Abolitionists." 1 And Mr. Ballagh says, 
that " will was not wanting but method unhappily was." 2 

The failure of this General Assembly to adopt any plan 
of emancipation or any comprehensive scheme for the 
deportation of the free negroes already in the state had a 
disastrous effect upon the attitude of thousands of Vir- 
ginians towards slavery. Despairing of relief from either 
of these sources and yet facing the peril of which the Nat 
Turner Insurrection was the warning sign, her lawmakers 
sought in repressive legislation to nullify the dangers 
of slave insurrection. Many accepted the institution as 
permanent and busied themselves marshalling arguments 
in vindication of its rightfulness and in refuting with 
growing bitterness the assaults of its opponents. 

But in addition to the Southampton Massacre, and the 
failure of the Legislature to enact any effective legislation, 
the contemporary rise of the Abolitionists in the North 
came as an even more powerful factor to embarrass the 
efforts of the Virginia emancipators. Unlike the anti- 
slavery men of former years, this new school not only 
attacked the institution of slavery but the morality of slave- 
holders and their sympathizers. In their fierce arraign- 
ment, not only were the humane and considerate linked 
in infamy with the cruel and intolerant, but the whole 
population of the slave-owning states, their civilization 
and their morals were the object of unrelenting and in- 
cessant assaults. Thus thousands sincerely desiring the 
abolition of slavery were driven to silence or into the ranks 
of its apologists in the widespread and indignant determina- 
tion of Virginians to resent these libels upon their character 
and defeat these attempts to excite servile insurrections. 

1 An Essay on Slavery, Thomas R. Dew, 1849, p. 6. 
^History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 138. 



ABOLITIONISTS AND PRO-SLAVERY MEN 49 

"What have we done to her," said the Rev. Nehemiah 
Adams of Boston, "but admonish, threaten and indict 
her before God, excommunicate her, stir up insurrection 
among her slaves, endanger her homes, make her Christians 
and ministers odious in other lands." 1 

From this period, too, may be noticed the gradual 
increase in the number of pro-slavery men in Virginia. 
This element did not justify slavery simply because of the 
difficulties and dangers attending emancipation, but they 
asserted that the institution was good in itself, sanctioned 
by religion, a blessing to the blacks and essential to the 
well-being of the whites. The growth of this new school 
in its aggressiveness and the extreme character of its 
utterances kept pace with the like development of the 
Abolitionists. As the latter denounced slavery as "man- 
stealing" — and slaveholders — as "thieves," the former 
marshalled Bible texts to show the divine origin and 
Heaven-approved character of the institution. As the 
Abolitionists portrayed the "degrading" and "brutaliz- 
ing" effects of slavery upon the character of slaveholding 
communities, the pro-slavery men pointed to the moral 
and civic virtues which undoubtedly existed in such 
communities, and claimed that these very virtues were 
attributable to the institution of slavery. As Abolitionists, 
relying upon the insistence that slavery was a " monstrous 
oppression," justified slave insurrections to effect freedom, 
the pro-slavery men sought to drive into silence their 
fellow Virginians of anti-slavery sentiments because any 
acknowledgment that it was illegal and that the condition 
of the slave was at war with the laws of natural right 
warranted the slave in killing his master to secure his 
freedom. 

^South Side View of Slavery, Adams, p. 127. 



50 THE GROWTH OF PRO-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS 

Thus, from 1833 on to the time of the war, the pro- 
slavery advocates grew in influence and aggressiveness, 
though what proportion of the population of Virginia 
they represented it is impossible to determine. Their 
extreme utterances undoubtedly gave them great promi- 
nence, as the march of events, in like manner, augmented 
their power. The sentiments of the anti-slavery men found 
little place in the turmoil of the times. Their position was 
strongly analogous to that of the majority of the Northern 
people, who, in the midst of the war cries of the Abolition- 
ists, continued in silence their business pursuits. 



IX 

The Northern Abolitionists and Their Reactionary 

Influence upon Anti-Slavery Sentiment 

in Virginia 

Thomas Jefferson Randolph was the foremost advocate 
of gradual emancipation in the Virginia Legislature of 
1832. In a pamphlet printed in 1870 reviewing political 
conditions in Virginia he makes the following statement 
with reference to the subject of emancipation and the 
influences which hindered its accomplishment after the 
year 1833: 

"After the adjournment of the Legislature in 1833, the 
question was discussed before the people fairly and squarely, 
as one of the abolition of slavery. I was re-elected on 
that ground in my county. The feeling extended rapidly 
from that time in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri until 
Northern abolitionism reared its head. Southern aboli- 
tion was reform and an appeal to the master; Northern 
abolition was revolution and an appeal to the slave. One 
was peaceful and the other mutually destructive of both 
races by a servile insurrection. The Southern people 
feared to trust to the intervention of persons themselves 
exempt by position from the imagined dangers of the 
transition." 1 

George Tucker, Professor of Political Economy, in the 
University of Virginia, in his work, The Progress of the 
United States in Population and Wealth, published in 
1843, referring to the subject, writes: 

*See printed pamphlet T. J. Randolph, September 25th, 1870, 
on file with Virginia Historical Society. 

51 



52 VIEWS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS 

" This is not the place for assailing or defending slavery ; 
but it may be confidently asserted that the efforts of 
Abolitionists have hitherto made the people in the slave- 
holding states cling to it more tenaciously. Those efforts 
are viewed by them as an intermeddling in their domestic 
concerns that is equally unwarranted by the comity due 
to sister states, and to the solemn pledges of the Federal 
compact. In the general indignation which is thus excited, 
the arguments in favor of negro emancipation, once open 
and urgent, have been completely silenced, and its ad- 
vocates among the slaveholders, who have not changed 
their sentiments, find it prudent to conceal them. . . . 
Such have been the fruits of the zeal of Northern Aboli- 
tionists in those states in which slavery prevails; and the 
fable of the Wind and the Sun never more forcibly illus- 
trated the difference between gentle and violent means 
in influencing men's wills." 1 

In 1847, Dr. Henry Ruffner, President of Washington 
College, delivered an address upon the subject of slavery 
in Virginia which attracted widespread attention. In 
this speech, made in the midst of the growing controversy, 
he refers to the reactionary influence of the Abolitionists 
as follows: 

"But this unfavorable change of sentiment is due 
chiefly to the fanatical violence of those Northern anti- 
slavery men usually called Abolitionists. . . . They have 
not, by honourable means, liberated a single slave, and 
they never will by such a course of procedure as they 
have pursued. On the contrary they have created new 
difficulties in the way of all judicious schemes of emancipa- 
tion by prejudicing the minds of slaveholders, and by 

Progress of Population and Wealth, Tucker, p. 108. Note — 
The author concludes his review of slavery in Virginia by saying: 
"As the same decline in the value of labor once liberated the 
villeins, or slaves, of western Europe, and will liberate the serfs 
of Russia, so must it put an end to slavery in the United States, 
should it be terminated in no other way." 



VIEWS OF CHANNING 53 

compelling us to combat their false principles and rash 
schemes in our rear; whilst we are facing the opposition of 
men and the natural difficulties of the case in our front." 1 

If it be thought, that Mr. Randolph, Professor Tucker, 
and Dr. Ruffner were influenced by their environment 
and a desire to shift from the people of Virginia to the 
Abolitionists responsibility for the growth in the state 
of reactionary sentiments, with regard to slavery, it may 
be well to quote the contemporary views of prominent 
anti-slavery men of the North. 

Dr. William Ellery Channing, writing in 1835, said: 

"The adoption of the common system of agitation by 
the Abolitionists has not been justified by success. From 
the beginning it created alarm in the considerate and 
strengthened the sympathies of the free states with the 
slaveholder. It made converts of a few individuals but 
alienated multitudes. 

"Its influence at the South has been almost wholly evil. 
It has stirred up bitter passions and a fierce fanaticism 
which have shut every ear and every heart against its 
arguments and persuasions. These effects are more to 
be deplored because the hope of freedom to the slaves 
lies chiefly in the disposition of his master. The Aboli- 
tionist proposed indeed to convert the slaveholders; and 
for this reason he approached them with vituperation 
and exhausted upon them the vocabulary of reproach. 
And he has reaped as he sowed . . . Thus, with good pur- 
pose, nothing seems to have been gained. Perhaps (though 
I am anxious to repel the thought) something has been lost 
to the cause of freedom and humanity." 2 

In 1837, the Legislature of Illinois adopted a series of 
resolutions of a pro-slavery character reprobating the 
methods of the Abolitionists. Against the resolutions 

l The Ruffner Pamphlet, Lexington, 1847. 

*The Works of William E. Channing, 1889, American Unitarian 
Society, p. 735. 



54 VIEWS OF LINCOLN 

as adopted, Abraham Lincoln prepared a memorandum 
and, together with Daniel Stone, a fellow member of the 
body, had the same spread upon its journal as a more 
accurate expression of their views. After referring to the 
resolutions, the paper declares : 

" They believe that the institution of slavery is founded 
on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulga- 
tion of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than 
abate its evils." 1 

This declaration of Mr. Lincoln was at once a protest 
and a prophecy. 

It is sometimes urged that because of Mr. Lincoln's 
youth, at this time, his estimate of the injuries wrought 
by the " promulgation of abolition doctrines" is not en- 
titled to much weight. It is true that he was then in 
his twenty-ninth year. A quotation from an even more 
notable deliverance, made fifteen years later, will show 

ir The following is a full text of the paper : 

"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having 
passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present ses- 
sion, the undersigned hereby protest against the passing of the same. 

They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both 
injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition 
doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils. 

They believe that the Congress of the United States has no 
power under the constitution to interfere with the institution of 
slavery in the different states. 

They believe that the Congress of the United States has the 
power under the constitution to abolish slavery in the District of 
Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised unless at 
the request of the people of the District. 

The difference between these opinions and those contained in 
the above resolutions, is their reason for entering this protest. 
(Signed) DAN STONE, 

A. LINCOLN." 

Representatives from the County of Sangamon. 
(Abraham Lincoln, A History, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 140.) 



VIEWS OF WEBSTER 55 

that reflection and observation served to confirm his con- 
victions of the earlier date. In his eulogy on Henry 
Clay, delivered in the State House, at Springfield, Illinois, 
July 16th, 1852 ; he said: 

"Cast into life when slavery was already widely spread 
and deeply seated, he did not perceive, as I think no wise 
man has perceived, how it could be at once eradicated 
without producing a greater evil even to the cause of human 
liberty itself. His feeling and his judgment, therefore, 
ever led him to oppose both extremes of opinion on the 
subject. Those who would shiver into fragments the 
Union of these states, tear to tatters its now venerated 
constitution, and even burn the last copy of the Bible, 
rather than slavery should continue a single hour, together 
with all their more halting sympathizers, have received, 
and are receiving their just execration; and the name and 
opinion and influence of Mr. Clay are fully and, as I trust, 
effectually and enduringly arrayed against them." 1 

This estimate of Mr. Lincoln had already been anticipated 
by that of Mr. Webster who, in his speech of March 7th, 
1850, in the United States Senate made a special reference 
to the disastrous influence exerted by the Abolitionists 
upon the cause of emancipation in Virginia. 

"Public opinion," he said, "which in Virginia had 
begun to be exhibited against slavery and was opening out 
for the discussion of the question, drew back and shut 
itself up in its castle. I would like to know whether 
anybody in Virginia can now talk openly as Mr. Randolph, 
Governor McDowell and others talked in 1832, and sent 
their remarks to the press? We all know the facts and we 
all know the cause; and everything that these agitating 
people have done has been not to enlarge but to restrain, 

1 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H, 
Vol. I, p. 174. 



56 VIEWS OF DOUGLAS 

not to set free, but to bind the faster the slave population 
of the South." 1 

Stephen A. Douglas, speaking at Bloomington, Illinois, 
July 16, 1859, said: 

" There is but one possible way in which slavery can be 
abolished and that is by leaving the state according to the 
principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, perfectly free to 
form and regulate its institutions in its own way. That 
was the principle upon which this Republic was founded. 
. . . Under its operations slavery disappeared from . . . 
six of the twelve original slaveholding states; and this 
gradual system of emancipation went on quietly, peace- 
fully and steadily so long as we in the free states minded 
our own business and left our neighbors alone. But the 
moment the abolition societies were organized through- 
out the North, preaching a violent crusade against slavery 
in the Southern States, this combination necessarily caused 
a counter-combination in the South, and a sectional line 
was drawn which was a barrier to any further emancipa- 
tion. Bear in mind that emancipation has not taken place 
in any one state since the Free-soil Party was organized 
as a political party in this country. . . . The moment the 
North proclaimed itself the determined master of the South, 
that moment the South combined to resist the attack, 
and thus sectional parties were formed and gradual eman- 
cipation ceased in all the Northern slaveholding states." 2 

In this speech, Mr. Douglas not only points out the 
methods by which slavery had been abolished in six of the 
twelve original slaveholding states, but he bears testimony, 
like his great contemporaries, to the reactionary influence 
resulting from the attitude of the Northern Abolitionists. 

This estimate of Senator Douglas was reaffirmed in the 
frank declaration of Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, who, speak- 
ing in the Peace Conference, at Washington, February, 

Webster's Great Speeches, Whipple, p. 619. 
^Lincoln- Douglas Debates, Columbus, I860, p. 31. 



VIEWS OF LUNT AND CURTIS 57 

1861, declared: "The North has taken the business of 
abolition into its own hands and from the day she did so 
we hear no more of abolition in Virginia. This was but the 
natural effect of the cause." 1 

If it be urged that the views of Channing, Lincoln, 
Webster, Douglas and Ewing were unfair in their estimate 
of the reactionary influence of the Abolitionists, because 
of the temper of the times in which they lived, it may be 
well to quote the conclusions of publicists not so situated. 
Mr. George Lunt, of Boston, writing in December, 1865, 
says: 

"After the years of 1820-21, during which that great 
struggle which resulted in what is called the Missouri 
Compromise was most active and came to its conclusion, 
the States of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee were 
earnestly engaged in practical movements for the gradual 
emancipation of their slaves. This movement continued 
until it was arrested by the aggressions of the Abolitionists 
upon their voluntary action." 2 

Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, of Boston, writing in 1883, 
after describing the discussions in the General Assembly 
of Virginia in 1831-32, and stating that Thomas Jefferson 
Randolph, the leader of the movement for the abolition 
of slavery, was re-elected in 1833 from Albemarle, one 
of the largest slaveholding counties in the state, because 
of his position, declares : 

"But in the meantime came suddenly the intelligence 
of what was doing at the North. It came in an alarming 
aspect for the peace and security for the whole South; 
since it could not be possible that strangers should combine 
together to assail the slaveholder as a sinner and to demand 
his instant admission of guilt, without arousing fears of 

1 Proceedings of Peace Convention, Crittenden, p. 142. 
2 The Origin of the Late War, Lunt, 1865, p. 33. 



58 VIEWS OF ROOSEVELT AND SMITH 

the most dangerous consequences for the safety of Southern 
homes, as well as intense indignation against such an 
unwarrantable interference. From that time forth eman- 
cipation whether immediate or gradual could not be con- 
sidered in Virginia or anywhere else in the South." 1 

As representative of a later generation and voicing 
sentiments of one more removed from the period of con- 
troversy, the views of Theodore Roosevelt are of value. 
Writing in 1898, he says: 

" In 1833 the abolition societies of the North came into 
prominence; they had been started a couple of years previ- 
ously. Black slavery was such a grossly anachronistic 
and un-American form of evil that it is difficult to discuss 
calmly the efforts to abolish it and to remember that 
many of these efforts were calculated to do and actually 
did more harm than good. . . . The cause of the Abolition- 
ists has had such a halo shed around it by the course 
of events, which they themselves in reality did very 
little to shape, that it has been usual to speak of them 
with absurdly exaggerated praise. Their courage and, 
for the most part, their sincerity, cannot be too highly 
spoken of, but their share in abolishing slavery was far 
less than has commonly been represented; any single, non- 
abolitionist politician, like Lincoln or Seward, did more 
than all the professional Abolitionists combined really to 
bring about its destruction." 2 

Writing still later, Mr. William Henry Smith, of Ohio, 
in his book, A Political History of Slavery, alluding to 
the work of the Abolitionists, says : 

"What befell is what has always been the experience, 
which must needs be ever the experience of society when 
men 'encounter with such bitter tongues,' when full play 

^Life of James Buchanan, Curtis, 1883, p. 278. 
^Thomas H. Benton, Roosevelt, p. 141. 



EMANCIPATION AND COLONIZATION 59 

is given to passion, prejudice and all uncharitableness. 
. . . After fifteen years of this commotion, the testimony 
of the judicious was 'that the tendency to general emanci- 
pation in the Border States had been checked, and that 
the Abolitionists had done more to rivet the chains of the 
slave and to fasten the curse of slavery upon the country 
than all the pro-slavery men in the world had done or 
could do in half a century.'" 1 

Despite, however, the growing embarrassments of the 
situation, there remained with the people of Virginia the 
conviction that in the dispersion or colonization beyond 
her borders, of a substantial part of her negro population, 
lay the surest road to ultimate emancipation and relief 
from the racial problems incident to slavery. The practice, 
therefore, of emancipation by deeds and wills continued, 
and individually and by concerted action, the various 
schemes for colonization were fostered and encouraged. 
The Legislature at its session, 1833, passed a bill appro- 
priating $18,000.00 per annum, for a period of five years to 
assist in transporting and subsisting " free persons of color 
who may desire to migrate from Virginia to Liberia." 2 

This appropriation, as we shall see, was followed by 
others of larger amounts to further colonization; and, in 
no state of the Union, with the possible exception of 
Maryland, did the cause receive greater assistance, in 
money and sympathy, than in Virginia. 

X A Political History of Slavery, William Henry Smith, 1903, Vol. 
I, pp. 40-41. 

'Virginian History of African Colonization, Slaughter, p. 67. 



X 

Negro Colonization — State and National 

The idea of colonization seems to have originated with 
Mr. Jefferson, who, in 1777, submitted a plan to a com- 
mittee of the General Assembly of Virginia. 

In 1787, Dr. William Thornton published an address 
to the free negroes of the whole country offering to lead 
them in person back to Africa. 

In December, 1800, the General Assembly passed a 
resolution requesting the Governor to communicate with 
the President of the United States with the view of pur- 
chasing lands beyond the limits of Virginia for colonization 
purposes. A considerable correspondence ensued between 
Mr. Monroe, the Governor, and Mr. Jefferson, the President. 

Nothing practical, however, resulted from these negotia- 
tions, though on the 27th of December, 1804, Mr. Jefferson 
wrote Governor Page: "I beg you to be assured that, 
having the object of the House of Delegates sincerely at 
heart, I will keep it under my constant attention, and 
omit no occasion which may occur of giving it effect.'' 1 

In January, 1805, the Legislature passed another resolu- 
tion requesting Virginia's representatives in Congress to 
use every effort to secure a portion of the territory of 
Louisiana for the colonization "of such people of color 
as have been or shall be emancipated in Virginia." 

The difficulties with France and England at this time 
prevented further prosecution of the subject, but, after 

1 Virginian History of African Colonization, Slaughter, pp. 1-6. 

60 



EARLY SCHEMES OF COLONIZATION 61 

the termination of the war between the United States and 
England, a resolution was passed by the General Assembly 
of Virginia, in December, 1816, requesting the Governor 
to correspond with the President with a view of acquiring 
upon the coast of Africa, or at some point in the United 
States, an asylum " for such persons of color as are now 
free and desire the same," or "that may hereafter be 
emancipated in Virginia." 

About the time of this action of the Virginia Legislature 
there assembled at Washington on the 21st of December 
1816, a body of prominent citizens from various states, 
who effected a tentative organization, from which resulted 
the American Colonization Society. Over this meeting 
Henry Clay presided, and among the notable persons 
present were Daniel Webster, Bushrod Washington and 
John Randolph of Roanoke. The Rev. Robert Finley, 
of New Jersey, and Mr. E. B. Caldwell, at that time Clerk 
of the Supreme Court at Washington, were especially 
active in bringing about the assemblage. Charles Fenton 
Mercer, of Virginia, and Francis Scott Key, of Maryland, 
were also among the most zealous friends of the enterprise. 
In addition to Randolph and Washington, Bishop William 
Meade, Rev. William H. Wilmer, John Taylor, Edmund I. 
Lee and other Virginians were also present. Mr. Clay 
has left upon record that "the original conception of 
the project is to be traced to a date long anterior," to the 
meeting and that " the State of Virginia, always prominent 
in works of benevolence, prior to the formation of the 
American Colonization Society . . . had expressed her 
approbation of the plan of colonization." 1 

On the first of January, 1817, the permanent organiza- 

l The African Repository and Colonial Journal — Vol. VI, No. 1, 
p. 13. 



62 AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY 

tion of the society was effected by the selection of Mr. 
Justice Bushrod Washington, of Virginia, as President, 
a position which he held for thirteen years. Judge Wash- 
ington was succeeded by Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, 
James Madison, Henry Clay and John H. B. Latrobe, the 
last named holding office until after the Civil War. 

The Society having been organized, immediate steps 
were taken to acquire land upon the coast of Africa upon 
which to establish the colony. For this purpose Samuel J. 
Mills, so well known and venerated for his missionary 
labors, and Ebenezer Burgess were sent to Africa, the 
money to defray their expenses being raised by Charles 
Fenton Mercer and Bishop Meade, of Virginia. 1 The report 
of these commissioners established the practicability of 
securing the necessary land on the coast of Africa and 
establishing the emigrants in their new home. The 
Society, however, was without sufficient means for the 
successful initiation of its great work and possessed no 
relation to the government, state or National. By a 
fortuitous train of circumstances and the zeal of certain 
of its members, among whom Virginians bore an active 
part, all of these objects were in a measure attained. 

Under the terms of the Federal statute prohibiting the 
foreign slave trade it was provided that any slave whose 
importation was attempted in violation of the act should 
be seized by the authorities of the state where the importa- 
tion occurred, and disposed of at its pleasure. The State 
of Georgia had, accordingly, acquired possession of a 
number of imported negroes and had advertised them for 
sale at Milledgeville, May 4, 1819. Such an event and such 
a policy would have defeated the statute, one of whose 
objects was to prevent the increase of the slave population. 
Liberia Bulletin. No. 16— February, 1900, p. 21. 



FOUNDING OF COLONY OF LIBERIA 63 

Learning of these facts, Bishop Meade, of Virginia, was 
sent as the representative of the Colonization Society, to 
Georgia, where he secured the release of the negroes 
advertised to be sold, upon condition that the Society 
would reimburse the state for the costs incurred in their 
maintenance. 1 George Washington Parke Custis, of Vir- 
ginia, offered an island near Cape Charles, Virginia, as 
a place of refuge until they could be transported to Africa. 2 
Knowledge of the foregoing facts induced Charles Fenton 
Mercer and John Floyd, of Virginia, to present to Con- 
gress, of which they were members, a bill which became 
a law in 1819, whereby all negroes imported since the 
passage of the act should be returned to their own country, 
appointing agents upon the coast of Africa to receive them ; 
and appropriating $100,000.00 to carry this law into 
effect. President Monroe was zealous in enforcing the 
provisions of this law, and acted in cordial co-operation 
with the Colonization Society to effectuate its purposes. 
Under the provisions of the act, territory was acquired 
upon the coast of Africa, and there the colony of Liberia 
was established. In 1824, in recognition of Mr. Monroe's 
services, the inhabitants of the colony named their capital 
Monrovia. 

In the great work of the American Colonization Society, 
the leading people of Virginia took a most active and 
sympathetic interest. This was evinced in the organiza- 
tion of Auxiliary Societies at Richmond, Norfolk, Fred- 
ericksburg, Petersburg, Alexandria, Lynchburg, Wheeling, 
Charlestown, Shepherdstown, Hampton and Harper's 
Ferry and in the Counties of Isle of Wight, Sussex, Albe- 
marle, King William, Dinwiddie, Amherst, Berkeley, 

l Memoir of Bishop Meade, Johns, 1867, p. 120. 
"History of United States, McMaster, Vol. IV, p. 65. 



64 VIRGINIA'S EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION 

Nansemond, Buckingham, Nelson, Fluvanna, Frederick, 
Augusta, Kanawha, Powhatan, Loudoun, Rockingham, 
Mecklenburg, Campbell, and others. The officials of 
these Societies numbered many of the most prominent 
men of Virginia; John Marshall, then Chief Justice of the 
United States, was President of the Richmond branch. 

The Virginia Auxiliary Societies collected money by 
private subscription, and facilitated in every way the 
transportation of such free negroes as desired to emigrate. 
In 1826, upon the petition of the Societies, the Legislature 
of Virginia made its first appropriation to assist in their 
work. In addition to those in Virginia, Auxiliary Societies 
were organized in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Kentucky. 

In 1828 the Colonization Society of Virginia was estab- 
lished and thereafter Virginians directed their energies 
largely through this Virginia organization. John Marshall 
was elected President of the Virginia Society, and James 
Madison, James Monroe, John Tyler and William H. 
Broadnax, were among its Vice-Presidents. 

By an act passed in 1850 the General Assembly of 
Virginia appropriated the sum of $30,000.00 per annum 
for five years for the transportation and sustenance of free 
negroes who desired to emigrate. Certain qualifications 
of the measure limited its effectiveness, and in 1853, 
the Virginia Colonization Society secured its repeal and 
the enactment of a new law appropriating $30,000.00 per 
annum for five years, with much more liberal provisions 
as to the method of its expenditure. Private benevolence 
supplemented the state. The reports of the Society show 
that during the years 1850-51-52 private contributions 
from the people of Virginia aggregated over $21, 000.00. * 

^Virginian History of African Colonization, Slaughter, p. 100. 



ABOLITIONISTS AND PRO-SLAVERY MEN 65 

The work of the Society was endorsed by the churches 
and more and more it assumed the character of a Christian 
enterprise. It was commended because it brought relief 
to Virginia, blessings to the ex-slaves, greater hope of 
freedom to those still in bondage, and carried Christianity 
and civilization to Africa. Among the first of many 
white men who gave their lives to the cause of colonization 
was Samuel J. Mills, who died at sea on his way home 
from Africa. Mills was the leader in the band of students 
at Williams College, Massachusetts, so well known for their 
missionary zeal and labours, and hence has a double claim 
upon our gratitude. 

The problems and difficulties of colonization, admittedly 
great, were seriously augmented by the active opposition 
of the extreme pro-slavery men at the South and the 
Abolitionists at the North. Each of these two antagonistic 
forces strenuously opposed the work of colonization, the 
first because it facilitated eventual emancipation, the 
second, among other reasons, because it rendered condi- 
tions more tolerable and thus postponed the day of the 
universal and immediate abolition of slavery. 

In addition to the colonizations made through the aid 
of the colonization societies, many Virginia slaveholders 
emancipated their slaves and at their own expense colonized 
them in some of the free states. A few instances will 
illustrate the custom and the difficulties often encountered 
by these emancipators and their ex-slaves. 



XI 

Instances of Colonizations by Individual 
Slaveholders 

By the will of Samuel Gist, his slaves were emancipated 
and William F. Wickham and Carter B. Page, of Rich- 
mond, appointed trustees to acquire land in some one of 
the free states on which to provide homes for the newly 
manumitted freedmen. Accordingly, these trustees pur- 
chased two tracts of land in Brown County, Ohio, one 
containing one thousand and the other twelve hundred 
acres at a cost of $4400.00.' 

In 1819, the freedmen, consisting of one hundred and 
thirteen from Hanover County and one hundred and fifty 
from Goochland and Amherst Counties, were transported 
to Ohio and settled on the lands purchased, as above in- 
dicated, by the trustees. 

The facts are meagre with respect to the reception 
accorded these negroes and the measure of success which 
attended the colonization. From the best information 
obtainable, it seems that they were treated in no very 
friendly manner and that, in time, the negroes lost most of 
the lands provided for them by their former owner. 

Edward Coles, of Albemarle County, inherited from his 
father a large number of slaves. Determining to give 
them their freedom, he conducted them in April, 1819, to 
Illinois, where he established them in their own homes 

^ee Record of Deeds, Vol. A., p. 230, Recorder's Office, Brown 
County, Ohio. 

66 



INSTANCES OF COLONIZATION 67 

near the town of Edwardsville, giving to each head of a 
family a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of land. 1 
Mr. Coles, like many other Virginians, who attempted a 
like emancipation, not only incurred the great pecuniary 
loss resulting from the liberation of his slaves and the ex- 
penses of their removal and establishment, but he incurred 
the ill will and opposition of the inhabitants of the state in 
which they settled. 

The biographers of Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, 
referring to the attitude of the people of Illinois towards 
free negroes, record: 

"Even Governor Coles, the public-spirited and popular 
politician, was indicted and severely fined for having 
brought his own freedmen into this state and having 
assisted them in establishing themselves around him upon 
farms of their own." 2 

Mr. Coles was a neighbor and friend of Jefferson, Madison 
and Monroe. He was Madison's private secretary and 
was appointed by President Monroe Registrar of the Land 
Office at Edwardsville, 111., in March, 1819, a position 
of influence and importance. Three years later he was 
elected Governor of the state and his career as such was 
notable for the great part he bore in defeating the move- 
ment to change the state constitution of Illinois so as 
to permit the introduction and maintenance of slavery 
within that state. In 1832 Governor Coles removed to 
Philadelphia where he lived until his death. When Vir- 
ginia seceded, his son, Roberts Coles, volunteered in her 
service and was killed at the Battle of Roanoke Island. 

l Sketch of Edward Coles, Washburne, pp. 47-52. 

2 Abraham Lincoln, A History, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 145. 

(Note. The fine imposed upon Governor Coles was subsequently 
remitted by an act of the Legislature because the law under which 
he was fined had not been published at the date of his offense.) 



68 INSTANCES OF COLONIZATION 

By his will, admitted to probate on the 20th of Novem- 
ber, 1826, John Ward, Sr., of Pittsylvania, emancipated 
all of his slaves, giving to each of them over fifteen years 
of age twenty dollars, except to certain enumerated ones, 
to whom the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars each 
was bequeathed. 1 In April, 1827, these freedmen, eman- 
cipated under the will of Ward (seventy in number), were 
transported to Ohio and settled in Lawrence County. 2 

By his will, John Randolph of Roanoke, who died in 
1833, emancipated all of his slaves and directed his executor, 
Judge William Leigh, to transport them to some one of 
the free states and settle them upon lands which he was 
directed to purchase for the purpose. The will bequeathed 
the sum of thirteen thousand dollars to defray the ex- 
penses incident to their colonization and to payfortheland. 

Howe in his Historical Collections of Ohio (Edition of 
1891) says: 

"In 1846 Judge Leigh, of Virginia, purchased 3200 
acres of land in this settlement for the freed slaves of 
John Randolph of Roanoke. These arrived in the Summer 
of 1846 to the number of about four hundred but were forci- 
bly prevented from making a settlement by a portion of 
the inhabitants of the county. Since then acts of hostility 
have been commenced against the people of this settle- 
ment and threats of greater held out if they do not abandon 
their lands and homes." 

"From a statement in the county history issued in 1882 
we see that a part of the Randolph negroes succeeded in 
effecting a settlement at Montezuma, Franklin Township, 
just south of the reservoir." 3 

'See Will Book No. 1, p. 109, Clerk's Office, Pittsylvania County, 
Va. 

2 See Public Ledger of Philadelphia, April 14, 1827. 

3 Historical Collections of Ohio, History of Mercer County, Ohio, 
by Henry Howe, 1891, Vol. II, p. 505. 



INSTANCES OF COLONIZATION 69 

By his will which was probated March 23, 1848, John 
Warwick, of Amherst County, Virginia, emancipated all 
his slaves, and in like manner bequeathed his whole estate 
to create a fund for removing them to one of the free 
states, purchasing farms, and establishing them in their 
new homes. The testator indicated that he preferred 
Indiana as the place of residence for his slaves. 1 Dr. 
David Patteson, of Buckingham County, was appointed 
executor and charged with the duties of settling the estate 
and removing the freedmen to their new homes. Before 
arrangements for their removal to Indiana could be per- 
fected, that state adopted its constitution of 1851, whereby 
free negroes and mulattoes were inhibited from coming 
into the state. Accordingly Dr. Patteson purchased for 
the ex-slaves a large tract of land in Ohio, near Kenton, 
and thither they were transported and settled in their 
new homes. The inventory of Mr. Warwick's estate 
shows that at the time of his death he owned seventy-four 
slaves. 2 

By his will, admitted to probate July 9th, 1849, Sampson 
Sanders, of Cabell County, emancipated all of his slaves 
and directed his executors to provide for their colonization 
" in the State of Indiana, or some one of the free states of 
the United States." 3 The testator bequeathed to these 
slaves the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, out of which fund 
should be paid the amount necessary for the purchase of 
land for their homes, the balance to be distributed among 
them. Before the intentions of the testator could be 

'See Will Book No. 11, p. 575, Clerk's Office, Amherst County, Va. 

Mohn Warwick was the great-uncle of the Hon. John Warwick 
Daniel, now (1908) and for many years past a member from Virginia 
in the United States Senate. 

3 See Will Book A., p. 391, in the Clerk's Office of Cabell County, 
West Virginia. 



70 SENTIMENTAL DIFFICULTIES 

carried into effect, Indiana enacted a law denying to freed 
negroes the privileges of settling in that state. Accord- 
ingly these freedmen were carried to Cass County, Mich., 
where they were settled in homes purchased for them 
under the provisions of the will of their former owner. 
This colony seems to have succeeded, and many of the 
descendants of the former slaves of Sanders are to-day liv- 
ing upon the lands purchased by his bounty. 1 

In addition to the many difficulties already enumerated, 
that invested colonization, there were other deterrent 
causes only less real. Was it right to send these newly 
manumitted slaves off, upon the hazard of maintaining 
themselves in the face of difficulties for which they had 
had so little training? This was the question for the 
master. What of their future in the far away and unknown 
land? That was the question for the slave. Then too, 
there came to both a genuine reluctance to meet the pain 
of separation. Of the fact of the existence of a strong 
affection between masters and slaves, in a great majority 
of the homes in Virginia where the institution of slavery 
existed, there can be no question. From the great number 
of instances illustrating the sorrows of masters and ser- 
vants in the hour of separation, we select two. 

David W. Barton, of Winchester, Virginia, eman- 
cipated many of his slaves a short time prior to the Civil 
War. Some of these were sent to Liberia, and others, 
who from age or youth were not regarded as equal to the 
trials of the trip, were settled in this country. Robert T. 
Barton, Esq., a son of the emancipator, in a letter to the 
author bears testimony to the fact of the affection which 
subsisted between the members of his father's family and 
these freedmen. " I was quite a small boy at the time," 
'See Outlook Magazine, N. Y., February 9th, 1903. 



INSTANCES ILLUSTRATING DIFFICULTIES 71 

he writes, "but I remember the incident perfectly. I 
recall the weeping family that parted with these servants, 
who were very dear to us." 1 

Traverse Herndon, of Fauquier, who died in 1854, by 
his last will emancipated his slaves, some fifty in number, 
and made provision for their transportation to Liberia. 
Two years later his brother, Thaddeus Herndon, eman- 
cipated his slaves, some twenty in number, and the two 
groups of freedmen, except such as were too old to bear 
the dangers of the voyage and life in the new country, 
were sent to Liberia in the fall of 1857, under the care of 
an agent of the American Colonization Society. 

The Rev. Charles T. Herndon, of Salem, Virginia, has 
furnished the author with an account of the parting 
between these freedmen and his father, Thaddeus Herndon, 
which occurred on board of the ship "Euphrasia," written 
by the Rev. John Seys, 2 a former missionary to Liberia, 

'Under date of March 19, 1907, Mr. Barton writes the author: 
"My father manumitted his slaves, or rather, certain of them, 
before the war. Under the law as I remember it, it was not neces- 
sary to put on record a deed of manumission of a slave who was 
sent out of the state. ... I was quite a small boy at the time, but 
I remember the incident perfectly. I recall the weeping family 
that parted with these servants, who were very dear to us. . . . 
Many years after that I received a visit from one of the women 
who had been the assistant in the nursery, and to whom, as a child, 
I remember I was very devoted. I do not believe that two near 
relations could have had a more affecting greeting. She stayed 
in Winchester for nearly a week, coming to my house every day, 
and finally went away without bidding us good bye, writing back 
from her home that she had done so because she could not stand 
the parting. The other servants who went away also kept up 
with our family the most affectionate relations for many years, 
and the old ones, who could not get away, were supported by my 
brothers and myself after the war until they died." 

2 Mr. Seys records that his experience as a missionary in Liberia 
prompted him to visit these emigrants on board ship, just prepara- 



72 OPPOSITION OF FREEDMEN TO COLONIZATION 

who was present on the occasion. The subjoined extract 
from Mr. Seys' account of the separation, which was pub- 
lished soon afterwards in the Maryland Colonization 
Journal, presents in the most vivid manner the sorrow 
attending the parting of Thaddeus Herndon and his former 
slaves, and the reverence and affection with which the 
slaves of Traverse Herndon regarded their dead master. 

Not infrequently the many difficulties which embarrassed 
the efforts of Virginia slaveholders to colonize their ex- 
slaves at points beyond the state were increased by the 
attitude of the slaves themselves. The experience of 
John Thom, of Berry Hill, Culpeper County, as related 
in a letter to the author under date of July 15th, 1908, 
by his son Cameron E. Thom, of Los Angeles, Cal., will 
serve as an illustration. Mr. Cameron Thom is at present 
a man of venerable years who seems to retain a vivid 
impression of the scenes incident to the attempt at coloniza- 
tion made by his father in the later thirties. Mr. Thom, 

tory to their departure, and at the request of Mr. Herndon, make 
them a short address. He then writes: "I closed my remarks 
and Mr. Herndon followed me." The latter said: "I may not see 
you again, I may as well say all I have to say now." And then 
he became so choked for utterance, and tears fell so fast that a 
silence ensued only broken by sighs and sobs of the entire party. 
Again he continued: 

"My heart is too full. I can hardly speak. You know how we 
have lived together. Servants, hear me, we have been brothers 
and sisters, we have grown up together. We have done the best 
for you. For two or three years this has been contemplated and 
you are now on the point of starting for the land of your ancestors. 
Besides your freedom, we have spent $2,000.00 in procuring every- 
thing we could think of to make you comfortable — clothing, bed- 
ding, implements of husbandry, mechanics' tools, books for the 
children, Bibles, a family Bible for each family, all these have been 
provided, and when you have been there some few months, we will 
send you out another supply of provisions and will continue to do 
so. And now, you three brethren, who formed the committee 



OPPOSITION OF FREEDMEN TO COLONIZATION 73 

after narrating that his father was a soldier in the War 
of 1812, where he gained his title as commander of a 
Virginia regiment, and was for thirty years a member 
of the State Senate, proceeds to write with reference to 
his father's attitude towards slavery as follows: 

"He was not satisfied with it, and was restive under 
it. In his discussions of the subject he often quoted as 
expressive of his views Mr. Jefferson, who declared that 
'We have the wolf by the ears, and it is as dangerous to 
let go as it is to hold on.' I believe they were both gradual 
emancipationists. The idea of practical and immediate 
emancipation through the medium of colonization seems 
to have crystallized in his mind and stimulated him to 
action. He sent my eldest brother, Catesby Thom, to 
Pennsylvania to spy out the land and to make definite 
arrangements for the location, settlement and comfort 
of the proposed colony. After an absence of several 
weeks, he returned and reported that he had selected an 
ideal location for the experiment. Every desideratum 
seems to have been taken into consideration, climate, 
wood, water, fertility of the soil, products, neighbors, etc. 

" To carry out my father's plan, the next step was to call 
for eighteen volunteers to make up the colony. Here 
came a great disappointment. Of the number called for 
only one suitable man responded. . . . The volunteer 
idea was abandoned and conscription was resorted to. 
When the names of the eighteen chosen ones were an- 
nounced the plantation was indeed a house of mourning. 

appointed by the church to watch over your brethren, a word to 
you. You are chosen to admonish, guide, counsel the others, not 
to lord it over them, but gently and kindly to watch over their 
souls; and now, may God bless you. I can never forget you. 
Write to me, Washington, you can write; I have provided you with 
paper. Keep a journal, put all of your names down, even the 
children, and write opposite to each one everything that happens 
concerning you. I shall feel much interested in hearing from you — 
especially will your Miss Frances. (Here the bare mention of their 



74 OPPOSITION OF FREEDMEN TO COLONIZATION 

Prayers, protests and petitions came up, but were of no 
avail. A complete outfit was made up of three wagons, 
twelve oxen, three cows, tools, farming utensils, provisions, 
clothing, &c. The expedition got off all right, my brother 
Catesby being chief in command, and Uncle Billy Guinn, 
the only volunteer, a full second. Before the expiration 
of a week from the time of departure, two of the colonists 
had deserted and were back at Berry Hill, and in less than 
a year nearly all the others had found their way back. 
My brother, after some two months' absence, got back 
and reported that he would not go through with his ex- 
perience again for all the negroes in Virginia. 

"I left Virginia for the South in 1848; returning in a 
few weeks, I took my final departure from the state in the 
early Spring of 1849 for California where I have resided 
ever since, never having seen my father again. I believe 
he manumitted all or nearly all of the servants by deed or 
will." 

almost adored mistress started their grief afresh.) Now, as we 
may never meet again, let us part with prayer, let all kneel down, 
and Brother Seys will lead in prayer to Almighty God for you all." 
We knelt there, and under feelings words but poorly express, en- 
gaged in prayer as best we could amid cries and sobs and tears. 



XII 

Emancipation and Colonization: Views of 
Jefferson, Clay and Lincoln 

If it be urged that Virginia had reached the conclusion 
that without the dispersion or colonization of the whole 
or a large portion of her slave population emancipation 
was impracticable, it may be acknowledged that to a 
qualified extent this was true. The position, however, 
did not involve an abandonment of the principle of eman- 
cipation, but rather the insistence that with emancipation 
should go the work of solving the race problem by a method 
which gave some assurance of complete success. 

That this attitude of Virginia cannot be regarded as 
wholly unreasonable or reactionary will appear when we 
consider the views of some of the leading friends of negro 
emancipation. From the number of those whose sanity 
kept pace with their zeal, we select Thomas Jefferson, 
Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln. 

Mr. Jefferson in 1820 wrote: 

"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate 
than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain 
than that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the 
same government. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn 
indelible lines of distinction between them." 1 

Writing to Jared Sparks, President of Harvard College, 
in 1824, he said: 
"In the disposition of these unfortunate people there 
l Jefferson Manuscript, Raynor, p. 64. 

75 



76 VIEWS OF JEFFERSON AND CLAY 

are two rational objects to be distinctly kept in view. 
First, the establishment of a colony on the coast of Africa, 
which may introduce among the aborigines the arts of 
cultivated life and the blessings of liberty and science. 
By doing this, we may make them some retribution for 
the long course of injuries we have been committing 
on their population. . . . Second object, and the most 
interesting to us, as coming home to our physical and 
moral characters, to our happiness and safety, is to provide 
an asylum to which we can, by degrees, send the whole of 
that population from among us, and establish them under 
our patronage and protection, as a separate, free, and 
independent people, in some country and climate friendly 
to human life and happiness/' 1 

Mr. Clay's attitude with respect to the institution of 
slavery will appear from his oft-quoted declaration: 

"Those who would repress all tendencies to liberty and 
ultimate emancipation must do more than put down the 
benevolent efforts of the Colonization Society, they must 
go back to the era of our liberty and independence, and 
muzzle the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return 
— they must blot out the moral lights around us — they 
must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of 
reason and the love of liberty." 2 

His sentiments, however, with respect to the wisdom 
and necessity for colonizing the manumitted slaves were 
equally decided. In an address before the Colonization 
Society of Kentucky at Frankfort, December 17, 1829, 
Mr. Clay presented at length his reasons for supporting 
the movement to colonize all ex-slaves in the Republic 
of Liberia. In the course of this address he said : 

"If the question were submitted, whether there should 
be either immediate or gradual emancipation of all the 

Writings of Jefferson, Ford, Vol. X, p. 290. 
^Lincoln and Slavery, Arnold, p. 124. 



VIEWS OF CLAY 77 

slaves in the United States, without their removal or 
colonization, painful as it is to express the opinion, I have 
no doubt that it would be unwise to emancipate them. 
For I believe, that the aggregate of the evils which would 
be engendered in society upon the supposition of such 
general emancipation, and of the liberated slaves remaining 
promiscuously among us, would be greater than all the 
evils of slavery.'' 1 

Continuing, he said: 

" Is there no remedy I again ask for the evils of which 
I have sketched a faint and imperfect picture? Is our 
posterity doomed to endure forever not only all the ills 
flowing from the state of slavery, but all which arise from 
incongruous elements of population, separated from each 
other by invincible prejudices and by natural causes? 
Whatever may be the character of the remedy proposed, 
we may confidently pronounce it inadequate, unless it 
provides efficaciously for the total and absolute separation, 
by an extensive space of water or of land, at least of the 
white portion of our population from that which is free of 
the colored." 2 

In conclusion he said : 

"If we were to invoke the greatest blessing on earth, 
which Heaven, in its mercy, could now bestow on this 
nation, it would be the separation of the two most numerous 
races of its population and their comfortable establish- 
ment in distinct and different countries." 3 

The biographers of Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, 
declare : 

"The political creed of Abraham Lincoln embraced 
among other tenets, a belief in the value and promise of 

x The African Repository and Colonial Journal, Vol. II, No. 1, p. 5. 
'The African Repository and Colonial Journal, Vol. II, p. 12. 
Hdem, p. 23. 



78 VIEWS OF LINCOLN 

colonization as one means of solving the great race prob- 
lem involved in the existence of slavery in the United 
States. . . . Without being an enthusiast, Lincoln was a 
firm believer in colonization." 1 

Speaking at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857, Mr. 
Lincoln said: 

" I have said that the separation of the races is the only- 
perfect prevention of amalgamation. I have no right to 
say that all the members of the Republican Party are in 
favor of this nor to say that as a party they are in favor 
of it. There is nothing in their platform directly on the 
subject. But I can say a very large proportion of its 
members are for it and that the chief plank in that plat- 
form — opposition to the spread of slavery — is most favor- 
able to that separation. Such separation, if ever effected 
at all, must be effected by colonization. . . . The enter- 
prise is a difficult one but where there is a will there is 
a way; and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. 
Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and 
self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally 
right, and at the same time favorable to, or, at least, not 
against our interests, to transfer the African to his native 
clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the 
task may be." 2 

Upon his assumption of the office of President Mr. 
Lincoln sought to carry into effect his colonization views. 
In his first annual message to Congress — December, 1861 — 
after alluding to the act "to confiscate property used 
for insurrectionary purposes," enacted by Congress at its 
extra session, under the operations of which thousands of 
slaves had come into the custody of the Federal authorities 
and the further fact that some of the states might adopt 

^Abraham Lincoln, A History, N. & H., Vol. VI, p. 355. 
2 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H., 
Vol. I, p. 235. 



VIEWS OF LINCOLN 79 

similar statutes with similar results, he proceeds to say: 

"In such cases I recommend that Congress provide for 
accepting such persons from such states according to some 
mode of valuation in lieu pro tanto of direct taxes, or upon 
some other plan to be agreed on with such states respec- 
tively; that such persons, on such acceptance, by the 
General Government, be at once deemed free, and that in 
any event steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or 
the first mentioned if the other shall not be brought into 
existence) at some place or places in a climate congenial 
to them. It might be well to consider too whether the 
free colored people already in the United States could not, 
so far as individuals may desire, be included in such 
colonization. 

" To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the 
acquiring of territory, and also the appropriation of money 
beyond that to be expended in the territorial acquisition. 
Having practised the acquisition of territory for nearly 
sixty years the question of constitutional power to do so 
is no longer an open one with us. . . . 

"If it be said that the only legitimate object of acquir- 
ing territory is to furnish homes for white men this measure 
effects their object, for the emigration of colored men leaves 
additional room for white men remaining or coming here. 
Mr. Jefferson however placed the importance of procuring 
Louisiana more on political and commercial grounds than 
on providing room for population. On this whole prop- 
osition, including the appropriation of money with the 
acquisition of territory, does not expediency amount to 
absolute necessity — that without which the government 
itself cannot be perpetuated." 1 

As a result of these urgent representations Congress, at 
its session of 1862, placed at the disposal of the President 
the sum of $600,000.00 to be expended at his discretion 
in colonizing with their consent free persons of African 

l Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 64. 



80 VIEWS OF LINCOLN 

descent in some country adapted to their condition and 
necessities. 1 

Mr. Lincoln, with a view of carrying out this act of 
Congress, invited a number of prominent colored men to 
meet him at the White House on the 14th of August, 
1862, and then and there urged upon them the wisdom 
of availing themselves of the opportunity thus offered to 
make for themselves a home beyond the borders of this 
country. Mr. Lincoln said that the action of Congress 
in placing at his disposal a sum of money for the purpose 
of aiding the colonization of the people of African descent 
made it his duty, as it had for a long time been his inclina- 
tion, to favor that cause. Continuing, he said: 

"And why should the people of your race be colonized, 
and where? Why should you leave this country? This 
is perhaps the first question for proper consideration. 
You and we are different races. We have between us a 
broader difference than exists between almost any other 
two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not dis- 
cuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage 
to us both as I think. Your race suffer very greatly, 
many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from 
your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If 
this be admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we 
should be separated. 

"The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the 
best when free, but on this broad continent not a single 
man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours. 
Go where you are treated the best, and the ban is still 
upon you. I do not propose to discuss this, but to present 
it as a fact with which we have to deal. I cannot alter 
it if I would." 

In conclusion he said : 

l The Life, Public Services and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, 
Raymond, p. 504. 



VIEWS OF LINCOLN 81 

"I ask you then to consider seriously not pertaining 
to yourselves merely, nor for your race and ours for the 
present time but as one of the things if successfully man- 
aged, for the good of mankind — not confined to the present 
generation." 1 

In his special message to Congress April 16th, 1862, 
after alluding to the passage of the bill abolishing slavery 
in the District of Columbia, he approves the same and 
declares: -"'I am grateful that the principles of compensa- 
tion and colonization are both recognized and practically 
applied in this act." 2 

l The Life, Public Services and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, 
Raymond, p. 504. 

2 Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 73. 



XIII 

Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent Virginians 

No account of Virginia's record in regard to slavery 
would be complete which failed to set forth the position of 
her foremost men with respect to the institution. From a 
mass of data we have selected the following declarations as 
fairly expressive of their sentiments. We have not recorded 
the views of Virginians, however worthy, who were not 
by birth, training and sympathies, representative of the 
dominant element of her people. 

Richard Henry Lee, speaking in the Virginia House of 
Burgesses 1772, in support of a bill prohibiting the slave 
trade, said: 

" Nor, sir, are these the only reasons to be urged against 
the importation. In my opinion not the cruelties prac- 
tised in the conquest of South America, not the savage 
barbarity of a Saracen, can be more big with atrocity than 
our cruel trade to Africa. There we encourage those poor 
ignorant people to wage eternal war against each other; 
. . . that by war, stealth or surprise, we Christians 
may be furnished with our fellow-creatures, who are no 
longer to be considered as created in the image of God as 
well as ourselves and equally entitled to liberty and freedom 
by the great law of Nature, but they are to be deprived for- 
ever of all the comforts of life and to be made the most 
wretched of the human kind." 1 

Patrick Henry, writing on the 18th day of January, 1773, 

said : 

'Life of R. H. Lee, Lee, Vol. I, p. 18. 

82 



ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS PRIOR TO 1810 83 

" Is it not a little surprising that Christianity, whose chief 
excellency consists in softening the human heart, cherish- 
ing and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a 
practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of 
right and wrong? What adds to the wonder is that this 
abominable practice has been introduced in the most 
enlightened ages. . . . 

" Would any one believe I am the master of slaves of my 
own purchase! I am drawn along by the general incon- 
venience of living here without them. I will not, I cannot 
justify it. ... I believe the time will come when an 
opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. 
Everything we can do is to improve it, if it happens in our 
day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together 
with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an ab- 
horrence for slavery." 1 

At another time he wrote : " Our country will be peopled. 
The question is, shall it be with Europeans, or Africans? 
... Is there a man so degenerate as to wish to see 
his country the gloomy retreat of slavery?" 2 

George Washington, writing in 1786, to Robert Morris, 
of Philadelphia, after alluding to an Anti-slavery Society of 
Quakers in that city and suggesting that unless their prac- 
tices were discontinued, " None of those whose misfortune 
it is to have slaves as attendants will visit the city if they 
can possibly avoid it," continues: 

" I hope it will not be conceived from these observations 
that it is my wish to hold the unhappy people, who are the 
subjects of this letter, in slavery. I can only say that 
there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I 
do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it. But there 
is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be 
accomplished, and that is by legislative authority; and this, 
as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." 

l The True Patrick Henry, Morgan, p. 246. 

7 Life of Patrick Henry, William Wirt Henry, Vol. I, p. 114. 



84 ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS PRIOR TO 1810 

Writing in the same year to John F. Mercer, he said: 

" I never mean, unless some particular circumstance shall 
compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it 
being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by 
which slavery in this country may be abolished by law." 1 

George Mason, speaking in the Virginia Convention of 
1788 having the adoption of the Federal Constitution under 
consideration, said: 

" Mr. Chairman, this is a fatal section (Article 1, Section 
9) which has created more dangers than any other. The 
first clause allows the importation of slaves for twenty years. 
Under the royal government this evil was looked upon as a 
great oppression, and many attempts were made to prevent 
it; but the interest of the African merchants prevented its 
prohibition. No sooner did the Revolution take place 
than it was thought of. It was one of the great causes of 
our separation from Great Britain. Its exclusion has been 
a principal object of this state, and most of the states in the 
Union. The augmentation of slaves weakens the state; 
and such a trade is diabolical in itself and disgraceful to 
mankind; yet by this constitution, it is continued for 
twenty years. I have ever looked upon this as a most 
disgraceful thing to America. I cannot express my detes- 
tation of it." 2 

John Tyler, Sr., speaking in the same Convention in 
condemnation of the clause permitting the slave trade: 

"Warmly enlarged on the impolicy, iniquity and dis- 
gracefulness of this wicked traffic. He thought the reasons 
urged by gentlemen in defense of it were inconclusive and 
ill-founded. It was one cause of the complaints against 
British tyranny that this trade was permitted. The Revo- 
lution had put a period to it; but now it was to be revived. 
He thought nothing could justify it. . . . His earnest 

l The Writings of Washington, Marshall, Vol. II, p. 159. 
2 Madison Papers, Vol. II, p. 1391. 



ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS PRIOR TO 1810 85 

desire was that it should be handed down to posterity that 
he had opposed this wicked cause." 1 

Edmund Randolph, in 1789, wrote to Madison that he 
desired to go to Philadelphia to practise law, saying, " For 
if I found that I could live there I could emancipate my 
slaves, and thus end my days without undergoing any 
anxiety about the injustice of holding them." 2 

St. George Tucker/ in his edition of Blackstone's Com- 
mentaries, reviewing the origin of slavery in Virginia, and 
the status of the institution at the time he writes, 1803, 
declares : 

" Among the blessings which the Almighty hath showered 
on these states, there is a large portion of the bitterest 
draught that ever flowed from the cup of affliction. Whilst 
America hath been the land of promise to Europeans and 
their descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions 
of the wretched sons of Africa. . . . Whilst we adjured 
the God of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free, or 
die; and imprecated curses on their heads who refused to 
unite with us in establishing the empire of freedom, we 
were imposing upon our fellowmen who differ in com- 
plexion from us, a slavery ten thousand times more cruel 
than the utmost extremity of those grievances and oppres- 
sions of which we complained." 4 

At the conclusion of his carefully prepared article 

^Letters and Times of the Tylers, Tyler, Vol. I, p. 154. 

7 Life of Edmund Randolph, Conway, p. 125. 

3 Judge Tucker, who was professor of law at William & Mary 
College, made it a part of his course of lectures to demonstrate 
the moral and economic objections to slavery. 

Mr. Roosevelt points out that Thomas H. Benton acquired his 
deep-rooted antagonism to the institution while studying Black- 
stone "as edited by the learned Virginian Judge Tucker who in an 
appendix treated of and totally condemned black slavery in the 
United States." (Thomas H. Benton, Roosevelt, p. 297). 

*Tucker's Blackstone, Vol. II, Appendix, note H., p. 31. 



86 ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1810-1831 

showing the efforts made by the people of Virginia during 
the period of British rule to suppress the slave trade, their 
prompt prohibition of the traffic immediately upon the 
assertion of their independence, and the various statutes 
enacted to mitigate the hardships of the institution, he 
uses these earnest yet almost pathetic words: 

"Tedious and unentertaining as this detail may appear 
to all others, a citizen of Virginia will feel some satisfaction 
in reading a vindication of his country from the oppro- 
brium, but too lavishly bestowed upon her, of fostering 
slavery in her bosom, whilst she boasts a sacred regard 
for the liberty of her citizens, and of mankind in 
general." 1 

The foregoing quotations express the sentiments of the 
leading Virginians of the Revolutionary period with respect 
to slavery. 

The following quotations, taken from speeches and 
letters of the period between 1810 and 1831, express the 
sentiments of men, many of whom, though contemporaries 
of Washington and Mason and Henry, yet survived them by 
a quarter of a century. 

Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, wrote : 

" Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we 
have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the 
minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God ; 
that they are not violated but with His wrath? Indeed I 
tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that 
His justice cannot sleep forever." 2 

Writing in 1820 to John Holmes, he said: 

" I can say with conscious truth that there is not a man 

Hdem, p. 53. 

^Writings of Jefferson, Ford, Vol. Ill, p. 267. 



ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1810-1831 87 

on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve 
us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The 
cession of that kind of property — for so it is misnamed — is a 
bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought if, in 
that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be 
effected; and gradually, and with due sacrifice, I think it 
might be ; but as it is, we have the wolf by the ears and can 
neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one 
scale, and self-preservation in the other." 1 

John Tyler, in February, 1820, speaking in Congress as a 
Representative from Virginia when the bill for the admission 
of Missouri was under discussion, together with the amend- 
ment prohibiting the admission of slaves into the territories, 
said: 

"Slavery has been represented on all hands as a dark 
cloud and the candor of the gentleman from Massachusetts, 
Mr. Whitman, drove him to the admission that it would be 
well to disperse this cloud. In this sentiment I entirely 
concur with him. How can you otherwise disarm it? Will 
you suffer it to increase in its darkness over one particular 
portion of this land till its horrors shall burst upon it? 
. . . How is the North interested in pursuing such a 
course? The man of the North is far removed from its 
influence; he may smile and experience no disquietude. 
But exclude this property from Missouri by the exercise of 
an arbitrary power; shut it out from the territories; and I 
maintain that you do not consult the interests of this Union. 

" The gentleman from Massachusetts also conceded that 
for which we contend — that by diffusing this population 
extensively you increase the prospects of emancipation. 
What enabled New York, Pennsylvania and other states to 
adopt the language of universal emancipation? Rely on it, 
nothing but the paucity of the number of their slaves. 
That which would have been criminal in those states not 
to have done would be an act of political suicide in Georgia 

'Idem, Vol. VII, p. 157. 



88 ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1810-1831 

or South Carolina to do. By this dispersion you also 
ameliorate the condition of the black man." 1 

John Randolph of Roanoke, speaking in Congress, March 
2, 1826, said: 

" My feelings and instincts were in opposition to slavery 
in every shape; to the subjugation of one man's will to that 
of another; and, from the time I read Clarkson's celebrated 
pamphlet, I was, I am afraid, as mad as Clarkson himself. 
I read myself into this madness, as I have read myself into 
some agricultural improvements; but, as with these last, I 
worked myself out of them. . . . The disease will run 
its course. It has run its course in the Northern States; 
it is beginning to run its course in Maryland. The natural 
death of slavery is the unprofitableness of its most expen- 
sive labor." 2 

Replying to a Northern member in Congress, in 1826, he 
said : " Sir, I envy neither the head nor the heart of the man 
from the North who arises here to defend slavery upon 
principle." 3 

Francis W. Gilmer, writing to William Wirt, from Eng- 
land in July, 1824, said: 

"I begin to be impatient to see Virginia once more. 
It's more like England than any other part of the United 
States — slavery non obstanti. Remove the stain — blacker 
than the Ethiopian's skin, and annihilate our political 
schemers and it would be the fairest realm on which the 
sun ever shone." 4 

John Marshall, writing in 1826, said: 

" I concur with you that nothing portends more calamity 
and mischief to the Southern States than their slave popu- 

1 Letters and Times of the Tylers, Tyler, Vol. I, p. 312. 

2 Abridgment of Debates in Congress 1 789-1 S56, Vol. VIII, p. 40. 

^American Conflict, Greeley, Vol. I, p. 109. 

*Kennedy's Life of Wirt, Kennedy, Vol. II, p. 188. 



ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1810-1831 89 

lation. Yet, they seem to cherish the evil, and to view 
with immovable prejudice and dislike everything which 
may tend to diminish it. I do not wonder that they should 
resent any attempt, should one be made, to interfere with 
the rights of property, but they have a feverish jealousy 
of measures which may do good without the hazard of harm, 
that I think very unwise." 1 

James Monroe, speaking in the Virginia Constitutional 
Convention on the 2nd of November, 1829, said : 

"What has been the leading spirit of this state ever 
since our independence was attained? She has always 
declared herself in favor of the equal rights of man. The 
Revolution was conducted on that principle. Yet there 
was at that time a slavish population in Virginia. We hold 
it in the condition in which the Revolution found it, and 
what can be done with this population? ... As to the 
practicability of emancipating them, it can never be done 
by the state itself, nor without the aid of the Union. . . . 

"Sir, what brought us together in the Revolutionary War? 
It was the doctrine of equal rights. Each part of the coun- 
try encouraged and supported every other part. None 
took advantage of the other's distresses. And if we find 
that this evil has preyed upon the vitals of the Union and 
has been prejudicial to all the states where it has existed, 
and is likewise repugnant to their several state constitutions 
and Bills of Rights, why may we not expect that they will 
unite with us in accomplishing its removal?" 2 

Benjamin Watkins Leigh, speaking in the Virginia Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1829-30, said : 

"I wish indeed that I had been born in a land where 
domestic and negro slavery is unknown — no, sir, — I mis- 
represent myself — I do not wish so. I shall never wish 

l John Marshall, Life, Character and Judicial Services, Dillon, Vol. 
I, p. 216. 

^Debates of Virginia Convention of 1829-30, p. 149. 



90 ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1810-1831 

that I had been born out of Virginia — but I wish that 
Providence had spared my country this moral and political 
evil. It is supposed that our slave labor enables us to 
live in luxury and ease, without industry, without care. 
Sir, the evil of slavery is greater to the master than to the 
slave. He is interested in all their wants, all their dis- 
tresses, bound to provide for them, to care for them, to 
labor for them, while they labor for him, and his labor is by 
no means the less severe of the two. The relation between 
master and slave imposes on the master a heavy and painful 
responsibility." 1 

James Madison, in 1831, wrote concerning slavery and 
the American Colonization Society: 

"Many circumstances of the present moment seem to 
concur in brightening the prospects of the Society and 
cherishing the hope that the time will come when the 
dreadful calamity which has so long afflicted our country 
and filled so many with despair, will be gradually removed, 
and by means consistent with justice, peace, and general 
satisfaction; thus giving to our country the full enjoyment 
of the blessings of liberty, and to the world the full benefit 
of its great example. " 2 

'Idem, p. 173. 

2 Life of James Madison, Hunt, p. 369. 



XIV 

Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent 
Virginians (Continued) 

The anti-slavery sentiments of prominent Virginians, 
expressed in the speeches delivered in the notable debate 
which occurred in the Virginia Legislature of 1832, may 
well be considered in a group by themselves. The speakers 
were all young men and represented a later generation 
than those from whom quotations have already been 
given. Many of them were destined to fill important 
roles in the political life of the state and some of them, 
with undiminished influence, survived the period of the 
Civil War. McDowell became Governor of the state and 
a member of Congress; Preston was a member of Congress, 
a member of President Taylor's Cabinet, and one of the 
leading spirits in the Virginia Convention of 1861; Ran- 
dolph was repeatedly returned to the Legislature and was 
a prominent member of the Reform Convention of 1850-51, 
and Faulkner was for years a member of Congress and also 
Minister to France. 

The position of these Virginians was significant as 
representative of the widespread anti-slavery sentiments 
which pervaded the state. Chandler, of Norfolk County, 
represented the largest slaveholding county in Tide-water 
Virginia; Broadnax and Boiling, two large slaveholding 
counties in the Black Belt; Randolph and Marshall, 
counties in the Piedmont section; Preston, the Southwest; 
McDowell, the Upper Valley, and Berry and Faulkner, 

91 



92 ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS, 1832 

the two counties in the extreme lower end of the valley. 
Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier County, speaking in the 
Virginia House of Delegates, January 14th, 1832, when 
the subject of the gradual abolition of slavery was under 
discussion, said: 

"Wherefore, then, object to slavery? Because it is 
ruinous to the whites, retards improvements, roots out 
an industrious population — banishes the yeomanry of 
the country — deprives the spinner, the weaver, the smith, 
the shoemaker, the carpenter, of employment and support. 
The evil admits of no remedy, and it is increasing and will 
continue to increase until the whole country will be inun- 
dated by one black wave covering its whole extent, with a 
few white faces here and there floating on the surface." 1 

John A. Chandler, a representative from Norfolk County, 
speaking on the 17th of January in the same debate, said: 

"It will be recollected, sir, that when the memorial 
from Charles City was presented by the gentleman from 
Hanover, and when its reference was opposed, I took 
occasion to observe that I believed the people of Norfolk 
County would rejoice could they even in the vista of time 
see some scheme for the general removal of this curse 
from our land. I should have voted, sir, for its rejection 
because I was desirous to see a report from the committee 
declaring the slave population an evil and recommending 
to the people of this commonwealth the adoption of some 
plan for its riddance." 2 

William H. Broadnax, speaking as a representative 
from the County of Dinwiddie, on the 19th of January, in 
the same debate, said: 

Virginia Slavery Debate, 1832, White, Speech of Thomas 
Marshall, p. 6. 

Hdem, Speech of J. A. Chandler, p. 3. 



ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS, 1832 93 

"That slavery in Virginia is an evil and a transcendent 
evil it would be idle and worse than idle for any human 
being to doubt or deny. It is a mildew which has blighted 
in its course every region it has touched from the creation 
of the world. Illustrations from the history of other 
countries and other times might be instructive and profit- 
able had we time to review them, but we have evidence 
tending to the same conviction nearer at hand in the short 
histories of the different states of this great confederacy 
which are impressive in their admonitions and conclusive 
in their character." 1 

Henry Berry, speaking as a representative from Jeffer- 
son County, on the 20th of January, in the same debate, 
said: 

" Sir, I believe that no cancer on the physical body was 
ever more certain, steady and fatal in its progress than 
is this cancer on the political body of the State of Virginia. 
It is eating into her very vitals. And shall we act the 
part of a puny patient, suffering under the ravages of a 
fatal disease, who would say the remedy is too painful, 
the dose is too nauseous, I cannot bear it ; who would close 
his eyes in despair and give himself up to death? No, 
sir, I would bear the knife and the cautery, for the sake 
of health. I would never despair of the Republic. For 
myself, I would abandon hope on this subject and the 
state together." 2 

Charles James Faulkner, speaking as a representative 
from Berkeley County, on the 20th of January, in the 
same debate, said: 

"Wherever the voice of your people has been heard 
since the agitation of this question, it has sustained your 
determination and called for the present enquiry. I have 
heard of county meetings, county petitions, and county 

l Idem, Speech of William H. Broadnax, p. 10. 
2 Idem, Speech of Henry Berry, p. 2. 



94 ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS, 1832 

memorials; I have heard from the North, the East, and 
the South. They are all, with one voice, against the 
continuance of slavery. None for it. The press, too, 
that mirror of public sentiment, that concentrated will of 
a whole community, has been heard from one extremity 
of the state to the other. Its power is with us, its moral 
force is united, efficient and encouraging. In this city, 
the capital of the Old Dominion, the heart of the common- 
wealth, which by one ventricle receives and through the 
other discharges the life blood of intelligence and public 
spirit throughout your empire, aye, and from a quarter 
and from many quarters where such a voice was least 
expected its tones have been firm, manly, and intrepid. 
Honor, sir, to those who dare speak the truth in the worst 
of times." 

In conclusion he said : 

"In the language of the wise and prophetic Jefferson, 
' you must approach it, you must bear it, you must adopt 
some plan of emancipation, or worse will follow.'" 1 

James McDowell, speaking as a representative from 
Rockbridge County, on the 21st of January, in the same 
debate, said: 

"Sir, you may place the slave where you please — you 
may dry up to your uttermost the fountains of his feelings, 
the springs of his thought — you may close upon his mind 
every avenue of knowledge and cloud it over with artificial 
night — you may yoke him to your labors as the ox which 
liveth only to work and worketh only to live — you may 
put him under any process, which, without destroying 
his value as a slave, will debase and crush him as a rational 
being — you may do this and the idea that he was born to 
be free will survive it all. It is allied to his hope of im- 
mortality — it is the ethereal part of his nature which 
oppression cannot reach; it is a torch lit up in his soul by 

Hdem, Speech of C. J. Faulkner, p. 5 and p. 22. 



ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS, 1832 95 

the hand of the Deity and never meant to be extinguished 
by the hand of man." 1 

Thomas Jefferson Randolph, speaking as a representa- 
tive from Albemarle County, on the 21st of January, in 
the same debate, said: 

"Does slavery exist in any part of civilized Europe? 
No, sir, in no part of it. America is the only civilized 
Christian nation that bears the opprobrium. In every 
other country where civilization and Christianity have 
existed together they have erased it from their codes." 2 

Philip A. Boiling, speaking as a representative from 
Buckingham County, on the 25th of January, in the same 
debate, said: 

" Mr. Speaker, it is vain for gentlemen to deny the fact 
that the feelings of society are fast becoming adverse to 
slavery. Moral causes which produce that feeling are on 
the march and will on until the groans of slavery are 
heard no more in this else happy country. Look over this 
world's wide page — see the rapid progress of liberal feelings 
— see the shackles falling from nations who have long 
writhed under the galling yoke of slavery. Liberty is 
going over the whole earth, hand in hand with Chris- 
tianity." 

l Idem, Speech of James McDowell, p. 20. 
2 Idem, Speech of T. J. Randolph, p. 15. 
Idem, Speech of Philip A. Boiling, p. 15. 



XV 

The Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent 
Virginians (Concluded) 

The period from 1833-1860 witnessed, as we have seen, 
the rise and progress of the abolition movement at the 
North and the growth of pro-slavery sentiment in Virginia 
and the South. These conditions are reflected in the 
deliverances of many prominent anti-slavery Virginians, 
and by a growing indisposition on the part of others of 
this element to publicly declare their sentiments or to 
take part in the discussions, which, with growing bitter- 
ness, marked the times. 

George Washington Parke Custis, speaking on the 
21st of January, 1833, before the American Colonization 
Society, said: 

"Some alarmists tell us that the slave population is to 
be freed. And, sir, does any one regret that the hope is 
held out, that with our own consent, we shall one day see 
an end of slavery? Should this Society be, as I doubt 
not it will, the happy means of producing this result, it will 
be renowned as having done one of the greatest and best 
deeds that have blessed the world." ' 

The following extract from a speech of William C. Rives 
serves not only to illustrate his anti-slavery sentiments, 
but the rise of the two antagonistic parties — the Aboli- 
tionists in the North and the Pro-slavery men in the 

1 See Proceedings of Sixteenth Annual Meeting of American 
Colonisation Society, January, 1833, p. XVII. 

96 



ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1833-1860 97 

South. The speech of Dr. Ruffner, delivered ten years 
later, also indicates the same condition and the fresh 
difficulties with which the cause of gradual emancipation 
in Virginia was thus confronted. 

William C. Rives, speaking in the United States Senate 
on the 6th day of February, 1837, after deprecating the 
action of Mr. Webster in presenting abolition petitions 
as precipitating controversy over a subject with respect to 
which Congress had no jurisdiction, then replied to the 
position of Mr. Calhoun, that slavery was a beneficent 
institution, as follows: 

"But, sir, while I have been thus prepared and deter- 
mined to defend the constitutional rights of the South 
at every hazard, I have not felt myself bound to conform 
my understanding and conscience to the standard of 
faith that has recently been set up by some gentlemen 
in regard to the general question of slavery. I have not 
considered it a part of my duty as a representative from 
the South, to deny, as has been done by this new school, 
the natural freedom and equality of man; to contend that 
slavery is a positive good; that it is inseparable from the 
condition of man; that it must exist in some form or other 
in every political community; and that it is even an 
essential ingredient in Republican government. No, sir, 
I have not thought it necessary, in order to defend the 
rights and institutions of the South, to attack the great 
principles which lie at the foundation of our political 
system, and to revert to the dogmas of Sir Robert Filmer, 
exploded a century and a half ago by the immortal works 
of Sidney and Locke. . . . 

" In pursuing this course I have the satisfaction of reflect- 
ing that I follow the example of the greatest men and 
purest patriots who have illustrated the annals of our coun- 
try—of the Fathers of the Republic itself. 

"It never entered into their minds, while laying the foun- 
dation of the great and glorious fabric of our free govern- 



98 ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1833-1860 

merit, to contend that domestic slavery was a positive good 
— a great good. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, 
the brightest names of my own state, are known to have 
lamented the existence of slavery as a misfortune and an 
evil to the country, and their thoughts were often anxiously, 
however unavailingly, exercised in devising some scheme of 
safe and practical relief, proceeding always, however, from 
the states which suffered the evil. . . . 

" In following such lights as these, I feel that I sin against 
no principle of republicanism, and against no safeguard of 
Southern rights and Southern policy when I frankly say in 
answer to the interrogatory of the gentleman from South 
Carolina, that I do regard slavery as an evil — an evil not 
uncompensated, I know, by collateral effects of high value 
on the social and intellectual character of my countrymen; 
but still in the eye of religion, philanthropy and reason, an 
evil." 1 

Charles Fenton Mercer, in his work, An Exposition of 
the Weakness and Inefficiency of the Government of the 
United States, published in 1845, said: 

" How shall we approach the horrid subject of slavery, the 
blackest of all blots, the foulest of all deformities? Here 
are a people descended from the very centre of civilization 
and free institutions of Europe, bearing with them the full 
tide of liberal principles, and the very cap and essence of 
liberty, and boasting not only of their descent, but that they 
are more than worthy of their ancestors, that have sanc- 
tioned slavery in its most abject form, and now, by actual 
enumeration, have upwards of three millions of them." 2 

R. R. Howison, the Virginia historian, in his History of 
Virginia, published in 1848, alluding to slavery in the 
state, said: 

Congressional Debates, Vol. XIII, part I, p. 717. 
2 An Exposition of the Weakness and Inefficiency of the Govern- 
ment of the United States, p. 167. 



ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1833-1860 99 

"We apprehend that in general, the people of Virginia 
hold slavery to be an enormous evil, bearing with fatal 
power upon their prosperity. This sentiment has been 
gaining ground during many years. . . . Under these cir- 
cumstances, we hail with pleasure any indications that this 
part of our population (the slave portion) is decreasing in 
number and that the time shall come when Virginia shall 
be a free state." 1 

Dr. Henry Ruffner, President of Washington College, 
delivered in 1847 an address which was printed in pamphlet 
form and widely distributed, dealing with the subject of 
slavery and emancipation. Referring to the attitude and 
efforts of the Abolitionists and the effect upon anti-slavery 
sentiment in the state, he said: 

"But, fellow-citizens, shall we suffer this meddlesome 
sect of Abolitionists to blind our eyes to the evils of slavery 
and to tie up our hands when the condition of the country, 
and the welfare of ourselves and our children, summon us 
to immediate action? . . . 

" Having failed in their first mode of action by denun- 
ciatory pamphlets and newspapers, and by petitions to 
Congress, the most violent class of Abolitionists have now 
formed themselves into a political party aiming to subvert 
the Federal Constitution which guarantees the rights of 
slaveholders, and to destroy the Federal Union which is 
the glory and safeguard of us all. Thus they have armed 
against themselves every American patriot; and what is 
most remarkable, they have met from the opposite extreme 
those Southern politicians and ultra pro-slavery men — 
called ' Chivalry ' and ' Nullifiers, ' who so often predict and 
threaten a dissolution of the Union." 2 

Matthew F. Maury, writing in 1851, said: 

" I am sure you would rejoice to see the people of Virginia 

^History of Virginia, Howison, Vol. II, p. 519. 
2 The Ruffner Pamphlet, Lexington, 1847. 



100 ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1833-1860 

rise up to-morrow and say, ' From and after a future day, 
say January 1st, 1855, there shall be neither slavery nor in- 
voluntary servitude in Virginia. ' Although this would not 
strike the shackle from off a single arm nor command a 
single slave to go free, yet it would relieve our own loved 
Virginia of that curse." 1 

Bishop William Meade in 1854, writing of slavery, said : 

" While we must acknowledge that the advantage of the 
African trade notwithstanding the cruelties accompanying 
it has been on the side of that people both temporally and 
spiritually; yet we can never be brought to believe that 
the introduction into, and the multiplication of slavery in 
Virginia has advanced either her religious, political, or 
agricultural interests. On the contrary we are confident 
that it has injured all." 

In 1857, alluding to the foregoing statement, he wrote : 

" I have been for the last fifty years, and more especially 
for the last thirty, travelling much the length and breadth 
of Virginia, making observations for myself, conversing 
with intelligent farmers, politicians, ministers of the gospel, 
and other Christians on the subjects referred to above. 
... I have not only reconsidered them myself, but freely 
conversed with many sound-minded persons concerning 
the views there presented; and the result has been an 
increased conviction that they are correct and have been 
in time past, and still are held by the great body of our cit- 
izens, Christians, and statesmen." 2 

The statement of Howison, made in 1848 — that, " in gen- 
eral, the people of Virginia hold slavery to be an enormous 
evil, bearing with fatal power upon their prosperity," is 
confirmed by these conclusions of Bishop Meade, expressed 
ten years later. 

l Life of Matthew F. Maury, Corbin, p. 131. 

2 Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, Vol. I, pp. 
89-90, note. 



RESULTS OF ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS 101 

Robert E. Lee writing in December, 1856, said: 

" In this enlightened age, there are few, I believe, but will 
acknowledge that as an institution slavery is a moral and 
political evil in any country. It is useless to expatiate 
on its disadvantages. I think it, however, a greater evil 
to the white than to the black race, and while my feelings 
are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies 
are strongly for the former. . . . 

" While we see the course of the final abolition of slavery 
is onward, and we give it the aid of our prayers and all 
justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress 
as well as the result in His hands, who sees the end and 
chooses to work by slow influences." 1 

If it be urged that despite the foregoing anti-slavery sen- 
timents the institution remained intrenched in the laws of 
Virginia, and supported by a strong body of public opinion, 
it may be replied that the views of these Virginians, and 
others of like mind, were nevertheless productive of far- 
reaching and beneficent results. They were effective in 
robbing slavery of many of its most abhorrent and oppres- 
sive incidents. Under the public opinion thus generated 
the institution in Virginia assumed, as a rule, the patri- 
archal character — master and slave being bound by ties of 
mutual obligation and affection. Many of the legal hard- 
ships inseparable from the system were reduced to a 
minimum. Thus the breaking up of families, by sale of 
their members, was confined as nearly as possible to the 
distribution of estates and the collection of debts by pro- 
cess of law. In all the category of disreputable callings, 
there were none so despised as the slave-trader. The 
odium descended upon his children and his children's 
children. Against the legal right to buy and sell slaves for 
profit, this public sentiment lifted a strong arm, and rem 

^Life of R. E. Lee, Fitzhugh Lee, p. 64. 



102 NUMBER OF EMANCIPATIONS IN VIRGINIA 

dered forever odious the name of "Negro-trader.'' The 
good results of these conditions were evidenced in the higher 
measure of character, courtesy and capacity, which, as a 
whole, distinguished the negroes of Virginia. 

The position of these Virginians was also of great im- 
portance in keeping before the mind of the people the con- 
ception that slavery was an abnormal institution, and that 
with her growth in wealth and white population, Virginia 
could and would free herself from what Robert E. Lee de- 
scribed as " a moral and political evil. " Furthermore these 
sentiments were productive of an actual emancipation, the 
character and extent of which has been little appreciated. 
If devotion to the cause is to be measured by the actual 
manumissions effected, then Virginia's emancipators could 
contemplate with pride their record. George Wythe lib- 
erated his slaves at the close of the Revolution. Robert 
E. Lee, executor of George Washington Parke Custis, left 
his place at the front with the Army of Northern Virginia 
to emancipate the slaves of his testator as directed by the 
latter in his will. 1 Between these two there stretches a 
long line of emancipators, who, without compensation, 
liberated thousands of slaves. Mr. Ballagh estimates this 
number as high as one hundred thousand. 2 These slave- 
holders incurred not only the pecuniary loss of this great 
emancipation, but in many instances the expense of col- 
onization. When, too, it is remembered that their 
communities were often thus further burdened by the 
problems incident to the presence of an increasing body 
of freedmen, the full import of the beneficence is better 
appreciated. That many of these ex-slaves, despite statutes 

Will Book No. 4, p. 267, Clerk's Office, Alexandria County, 
Virginia. 

2 History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 144. 



NUMBER OF EMANCIPATIONS IN VIRGINIA 103 

and the efforts of masters and others to settle them at 
points beyond the state, remained in Virginia is attested by 
the Federal census, from which it appears that in 1860 
there were still fifty-eight thousand and forty-two free 
negroes within her borders. 



XVI 

Specimens of Deeds and Wills Emancipating 
Slaves 

An examination of a few of the great number of deeds 
and wills which are to be found on record throughout 
Virginia will serve to illustrate the motives of her eman- 
cipators and the many difficulties which confronted them. 
These emancipations may be grouped in three periods, — 
from 1782 to 1806, from 1806 to 1833, and from 1833 
to the outbreak of the Civil War. Each of these periods 
had its peculiar characteristics with reference to the 
problem of emancipation in Virginia. From 1782 to 1806 
the law permitted emancipation without qualification, 
and public opinion, in the state, while deploring the 
existence of slavery was willing to permit the slaveholders 
to control, in large measure, the times and methods of its 
abolition. The period from 1806 to 1833 marked the 
years when anti-slavery sentiment showed increasing 
strength. The antipathy, however, to the presence of 
the free negro was equally pronounced and resulted in the 
laws which required his removal from the state within a 
year after his emancipation. This requirement invested 
emancipation with new, practical, as well as ethical diffi- 
culties. This period opened with the act which denied 
to slaveholders the unqualified right of emancipation — 
and it ended with the Nat Turner Insurrection and the 
futile attempts of the General Assembly to successfully 
meet the difficulties of the situation. The years from 

104 



SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1782-1806 105 

1833 to 1860 were burdened with all the difficulties of 
the previous periods, as well as with the embarrassments 
growing out of the efforts of the Abolitionists beyond 
the state and of the pro-slavery advocates within her 
borders. 

An examination of the following extracts from the 
deeds and wills of emancipators will serve to illustrate 
the truth of these views. 

Extract from deed of Joseph Hill, of Isle of Wight 
County, dated March 6th, 1783: 

"I, Joseph Hill, of Isle of Wight County in Virginia, 
after full and deliberate consideration, and agreeable to 
our Bill of Rights, am fully persuaded that freedom is 
the natural life of all mankind, and that no law, moral or 
divine, hath given me a just right or property in the 
persons of any of my fellow-creatures, and desirous to fulfil 
the injunction of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, by 
doing to all others as I would be done by in a like situation 
... do hereby emancipate and set free all and every of 
the above named slaves, &C." 1 

Extract from deed of Charles Moorman, of Campbell 
County, dated September 1st, 1789: 

"I, Charles Moorman, from mature consideration and 
the conviction of my own mind, being fully persuaded 
that freedom is the natural right of all mankind, and that 
no law, moral or divine, has given me a right to or property 
in the persons of any of my fellow-creatures, and being 
desirous to fulfil the injunction of our Lord and Saviour, 
Jesus Christ, by doing to others as I would be done by — 
do therefore declare that having under my care twenty- 
eight slaves, (naming them), I do for myself, my heirs, 
executors and administrators, hereby release unto them 

l Deed Book No. 15, p. 122, in Clerk's Office, Isle of Wight County, 
Virginia. 



106 SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1782-1806 

the said slaves all my rights, interest, claims or pretensions 
of claims whatsoever to their persons or any estate they 
may acquire, &C." 1 

Extracts from deeds of Robert Carter, of Westmoreland 
County, each dated the 1st day of January, 1793 : 

" Whereas the General Assembly of the Commonwealth 
of Virginia did in the year seventeen hundred and eighty- 
two enact a law entitled ' An Act to Authorize the Manu- 
mission of Slaves/ know all men by these presents that I, 
Robert Carter, of Nomony Hall, in the County of West- 
moreland, do under the said act for myself, my heirs, 
executors and administrators, emancipate and forever 
set free from slavery the following slaves." (Here follow 
the names of the slaves, twenty-seven in number.) 2 

And on the same day a similar deed emancipating thirty 
slaves. 3 

Extract from deed of Francis Preston, of Washington 
County, dated the 20th day of September, 1793: 

"Whereas my negro man, John (alias) John Broady, 
claims a promise of freedom from his former master, 
General William Campbell, for his faithful attendance 
on him at all times, and more particularly while he was 
in the army in the last war, and I who claim the said negro, 
in right of my wife, daughter of said General William 
Campbell, feeling a desire to emancipate the said negro 
man John as well for the fulfilment of the above mentioned 
promise as the gratification of being instrumental of 
promoting a participation of liberty to a fellow-creature, 
who by nature is entitled thereto, do by these presents, 

*Deed Book No. 2, p. 418, in Clerk's Office, Campbell County, 
Virginia. 

2 Deed and Will Book No. 18, p. 213, in the Clerk's Office, West- 
moreland County, Virginia. 

3 Idem, p. 244. 



SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1782-1806 107 

for myself, my heirs, executors and administrators, fully 
emancipate and make free, to all intents and purposes, the 
said negro man John (alias) John Brody from me and my 
heirs forever." 

Extract from the will of Richard Randolph, Jr., ad- 
mitted to record in Clerk's Office of Prince Edward County, 
April 8th, 1797: 

" In the first place — to make retribution as far as I am 
able to an unfortunate race of bondsmen over whom 
my ancestors have usurped and exercised the most lawless 
and monstrous tyranny, and in whom my countrymen 
by their iniquitous laws in contradiction of their own 
Declaration of Rights . . . have vested me with absolute 
property; ... to exculpate myself to those who may 
perchance think or hear of me after death from the black 
crime which otherwise would be imputed to me of volun- 
tarily holding the above mentioned miserable beings in 
the same state of abject slavery in which I found them 
on receiving my patrimony at lawful age; to impress my 
children with just horror at a crime so enormous and 
indelible, and to adjure them in the last words of a fond 
father never to participate in it ... I do declare that it 
is my will and desire, nay, most anxious wish, that my 
negroes, all of them, be liberated, and I do declare them 
by this writing free and emancipated to all intents and 
purposes whatsoever." 2 

l Deed Book for Year 1793, in Clerk's Office of Washington 
County, Abingdon, Virginia. 

2 See Will Book for 1797, Clerk's Office, Prince Edward County, 
Farmville, Virginia. 

Note : Mr. Randolph explained in his will that he did not eman- 
cipate his slaves by deed because at the date his will was written 
they were still bound for certain debts of his father from whom 
he inherited them. In accordance with his will they were all, 
some two hundred in number, finally set free. Richard Randolph 
was the brother of John Randolph of Roanoke and a stepson of 
St. George Tucker. 



108 SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1782-1806 

Extract from the will of George Washington, dated 
July 9th, 1799, recorded in the Clerk's Office of Fairfax 
County : 

"Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire 
that all the slaves whom I hold in my own right shall 
receive their freedom. To emancipate them during her 
life would, though earnestly wished by me, be attended 
with such insuperable difficulties on account of their 
intermixture by marriage with the dower negroes as to 
excite the most painful sensations, if not disagreeable 
consequences to the latter, while both descriptions are in 
the occupancy of the same proprietor; it not being in my 
power under the tenure by which the dower negroes are 
held to manumit them." 

The will further provides that all slaves who at the 
time of their emancipation are unable, by reason of old 
age, bodily infirmities, or youth, to support themselves 
shall be cared for out of his estate, the testator declaring : 

"I do moreover most pointedly and most solemnly 
enjoin it upon my executors hereafter named, or the 
survivors of them, to see that this clause respecting slaves 
and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the epoch 
at which it is directed to take place without evasion, 
neglect or delay, after the crops which may then be in 
the ground are harvested, particularly as it respects the 
aged and infirm ; seeing that a regular and permanent fund 
be established for their support as long as there are sub- 
jects requiring it." 1 

Extract from the will of Jesse Bonner, of Dinwiddie, 
dated 8th April, 1797, and admitted to probate 17th 
April, 1803: 

" Item : I leave the use of the plantation whereon I now 
1 Life of Washington, Irving, Vol. V, p. 439. 



SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1806-1833 109 

live and my New Survey adjoining it to my beloved wife, 
Rebecca Bonner, during her life or widowhood; also all the 
negroes belonging to me. 

" Item : My will and desire is that all the above negroes 
which I have lent to my beloved wife, Rebecca Bonner, 
namely (here the slaves, fifteen in number, are named), 
with all their increase from this day, be emancipated and 
go free at the death or marriage of my beloved wife, 
Rebecca Bonner. 

" Item : My will and desire is that if I have no child the 
plantation whereon I now live together with my New 
Survey, be given to my negroes and their heirs forever, 
after the death or marriage of my beloved wife, Rebecca 
Bonner.' '* 

The reader will observe, that in many of the foregoing 
extracts the anti-slavery sentiments of the emancipators 
are freely and vigorously expressed and the act of eman- 
cipation is, in many instances, based upon the conviction 
that slavery was repugnant alike to the political institu- 
tions of the state and the principles of the Christian religion. 

During the time from 1806-1833 there seems to have 
been a diminution in the number of emancipations, espe- 
cially in the earlier years of that period. This was doubt- 
less to be accounted for by the difficulties, resulting from 
the law, which required the removal of the slave from 
the state within twelve months next succeeding his eman- 
cipation. However, with the increase in the facilities 
of travel, some of these practical difficulties were over- 
come, and during the latter years of the period the number 
of emancipations annually made were as large as, if not 
larger than, previous to the enactment of the law. 

Extract from the will of Charles Ewell, of Prince William 

'See Will Book for Year 1803, Dinwiddie Court-House, Virginia. 



110 SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1806-1833 

County, dated 8th October, 1823, and admitted to probate 
3rd November, 1823: 

" It is my will that all the increase of my negroes named 
shall be free at the age of twenty-five, and their increase, 
if any, to be free at the same age (those only who were 
born before their parents arrived at the age of twenty-four) , 
those born after to be liberated with their mothers/' 1 

Extract from the will of John Smith, of Sussex County, 
dated 9th November, 1825, and admitted to probate 2nd 
March, 1826: 

"At the death of my beloved wife, I direct that all of 
my negroes, without regard to age, sex or condition, with 
all their future increase, be, by my executor, sent to the 
African Colonization Settlement, established for the removal 
of free black persons of color from the United States; 
and believing freedom to be the natural birthright of all 
persons and having spent many of my best days in defense 
thereof, I do hereby declare all of my said slaves or negroes, 
with their future increase ... to be emancipated and 
free . . . from and after the death of my said wife. And 
I do hereby give and grant to each of said negroes so 
emancipated, without regard to age, sex or condition, one 
good serviceable hat, one pair shoes and stockings, blanket 
and one year's provisions, exclusive of ship provisions 
on board, to carry with them. ... I hereby direct my 
executors to pay all expenses of removing said eman- 
cipated slaves out of any money that may be in their 
hands belonging to my estate." 2 

Extract from the will of John Ward, Sr., of Pittsylvania 

J See Will Book M., p. 103, Prince William County, Virginia. 

2 See Will Book K., p. 322, Clerk's Office of Sussex County. 

Note: The inventory of Smith's estate shows that he owned 
forty-three slaves at the time of his death. Testator was a soldier 
in the Revolutionary Army. 



SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1806-1833 111 

County, dated the 30th day of July, 1826 and recorded the 
20th of November, 1826: 

" It is my will and desire that all my slaves now living 
or which may be living at the time of my death be free and 
I do hereby bequeath to each and every one of them their 
freedom immediately upon my death in as full and unlimited 
a manner as the laws of Virginia will admit of. But should 
any of my slaves choose not to avail themselves of this be- 
quest of their freedom with the conditions which the law 
may annex, then it is my will and desire that they have the 
privilege of choosing their master who may take them at 
the valuation of two good men, to be chosen by my exec- 
utors, and should the females thus electing choose to keep 
any of their children with them it is my will that said 
children be at liberty to obtain their freedom at the age of 
twenty-one years in the same manner. ... I give to all 
my slaves over fifteen years at the time of my death each 
the sum of twenty dollars — excepting Davy and Nancy, 
having already given them one hundred and fifty dollars 
each." 1 

Extract from the will of Martha E. Peyton, of Prince 
William County, dated the 30th June, 1831, and admitted 
to probate October 3rd, 1831 : 

"Secondly, I do hereby will and direct that after my 
debts are paid in the manner aforesaid that all my negroes 
without exception shall be emancipated and have their 
freedom; they having served me during my life and as I 
am unwilling for them to be kept in slavery or owned by any 
person after my death." 2 

Extract from the will of Aylette Hawes, of Rappahan- 
nock County, dated the 9th August, 1832, and admitted 
to probate 7th October, 1833 : 

'See Will Book No. 1, p. 109, Clerk's Office, Pittsylvania County, 
Virginia. 

2 See Will Book N., p. 383, Prince William County, Virginia. 



112 SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1806-1833 

"I do hereby free and emancipate all my slaves that 1 
may own at my death, that I may not hereafter dispose 
of; such of the said slaves that are old and infirm, I wish to 
have the liberty of choosing their place of residence with 
any of my relations, and to receive from my estate such 
assistance as, with the work they are able to do, will render 
them profitable without being an encumbrance where they 
live; and to Jack, who, besides being old and infirm, is also 
afflicted in his legs, I leave fifty dollars. Such of my said 
slaves as are so nearly white as to render it unsafe for them 
to go to Liberia I desire may be sent to the State of Ohio, or 
where slavery is not tolerated, at the expense of my estate. 
I desire my said slaves thus sent at the expense of my 
estate to Ohio, to be put under the protection and patron- 
age of David S. Dodge and his family and that the said 
David S. may be amply compensated from my estate for 
any trouble or expense he may be at in patronizing the said 
slaves. I desire all my other slaves to be transferred to the 
proper agent of the African Colonization Society, with 
twenty dollars each, for their transportation to Liberia." 1 

Extract from will of John Randolph of Roanoke, dated 
May, 1819, admitted to probate in 1833: 

"I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my con- 
science tells me they are justly entitled. It has a long 
time been a matter of deepest regret to me that the cir- 
cumstances under which I inherited them and the obstacles 
thrown in the way by the laws of the land have prevented 
my emancipating them in my lifetime, which it is my full 
intention to do in case I can accomplish it." 

The will makes provision for the purchase of land in some 
one of the free states and for removing the ex-slaves, 

! See Will Book A., p. 16, Clerk's Office, Rappahannock County, 
Virginia. 

Note: Hawes was for many years a member of Congress from 
Virginia and the inventory of his estate shows that at the time 
of his death, he owned one hundred and five slaves. 



SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1806-1833 113 

some three hundred and fifty in number, to their new homes 
to be provided for them thereon, the same to be equipped 
with farming utensils, etc. 1 

Extract from will of William H. Fitzhugh of Ravens- 
worth, Fairfax County, dated March 21, 1829: 

"After the year 1850 I leave all my negroes uncon- 
ditionally free, with the privilege of having the expenses 
of their removal to whatever places of residence they may 
select, defrayed. And as an encouragement to them to 
emigrate to the American Colony on the coast of Africa, 
where I believe their happiness will be most permanently 
secure, I desire not only that the expense of their emigra- 
tion may be paid but that the sum of fifty dollars shall be 
paid to each one so emigrating on his or her arrival in 
Africa." 

The will makes provision for a fund to carry out the fore- 
going directions. 2 

l Life of John Randolph, Garland, Vol. II, p. 149. 

Will Book No. 1, p. 57, Clerk's Office, Fairfax County, Virginia. 

Mr. Fitzhugh was the maternal uncle of Mrs. Robert E. Lee. 



XVII 

Specimens of Deeds and Wills Emancipating 
Slaves (Concluded) 

The deeds and wills during the period from 1833 to the 
Civil War made increasingly large provisions for the removal 
and colonization of the freedmen. It may be also noted 
that arraignments of slavery became very rare during that 
period. The same influences which almost hushed the 
voice of anti-slavery orators in Virginia, were effective in 
banishing from the deeds and wills of emancipators expres- 
sions which might give aid and comfort to the men who 
were daily denouncing the civilization and morality of the 
state. Though these arraignments might almost stop the 
discussion of slavery in Virginia, yet they could not destroy 
the sentiment in favor of emancipation. The liberation of 
slaves continued without diminution down to the outbreak 
of the Civil War. It may be also noted that these instances 
of emancipation go far to disprove the charge that the 
Virginia friends of negro colonization were inspired simply 
by a desire to remove the free negroes from the state in 
order to make more sure the tenure by which they held 
their slaves. John Randolph of Roanoke, General Black- 
burn, Bishop Meade, William Henry Fitzhugh and George 
Washington Parke Custis were all leaders in the coloniza- 
tion movement, and all of them emancipated their slaves. 

Extract from the will of Samuel Blackburn of Bath 
County, dated the 30th of October, 1834: 

"That all the slaves of which I may die seized and 

114 



SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860 115 

possessed, without distinction of age or sex, be, and they 
are hereby, declared free and forever emancipated, &c. 
. . . And as soon as the necessary arrangements can be 
made by my executors they shall be transported to the 
American Colony in Liberia and the expense of transporta- 
tion be charged upon my estate, real and personal. It is, 
however, expressly and implicitly understood that if any 
of my slaves aforesaid refuse to accept this boon it will be 
the duty of my executors and they are hereby requested 
so to do, to sell to the highest bidder in terms of the sale 
all who thus refuse and persevere in refusal, as slaves for 
life. And here let me admonish and warn these people 
how they let slip this golden moment of emancipating them- 
selves and their posterity forever from that state of slavery 
and degradation in which I found them and in which many 
of them have long served me. " 

By a codicil the testator provided that with respect to 
any slaves who might refuse to accept their freedom upon 
condition that they be transported to Liberia, his executors 
should not sell them separately but in families and by 
private sale to considerate masters. 1 

Extract from the will of Carter H. Edlow of Prince 
George County, dated the 20th of March, 1838, and ad- 
mitted to probate the 13th of August, 1844: 

" I desire that my estate shall be kept together and cul- 
tivated to the best advantage until a sufficient sum can be 
raised to pay my debts, should there be any deficiency in 
the amount of money on hand and debts due me, and to 
raise a sufficient sum to pay for the transportation of my 
slaves to any free state or colony which they may prefer 
and give to each slave fifty dollars on their departure. . . . 
It is not my wish to force them away without their consent; 
in the event of any of them preferring to remain in slavery 
they must take the disposition hereinafter directed." 

Will Book No. 14, p. 263, Clerk's Office, Bath County, Virginia. 



116 SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860 

The testator then devises the residuum of his estate to 
his nieces, along with such of his slaves as refuse to accept 
freedom. 1 

Extract from deed of William Meade, of Clarke County, 
dated the 29th of April, 1843: 

" Know all men by these presents that I, William Meade, 
of the County of Clarke and State of Virginia, with a view of 
preparing a certain female mulatto slave, named Lucy, for 
the enjoyment of the freedom hereinafter bestowed upon 
her, have . . . bound the said female, Lucy, now about 
seventeen years of age, to a certain J. W. Stockton, residing 
in the State of Pennsylvania, until the said Lucy arrives 
at the age of twenty-one years, &c. ... do give and grant 
unto the said Lucy her freedom forever and do hereby 
manumit her from my service, forever, &c." 2 

Extract from the will of Thacker V. Webb, of Orange 
County, admitted to probate August 28th, 1843: 

" I will and direct that at and after my death, my slaves, 
James, Joseph, Kendall, Judy and all the remainder of them 
both old and young (not enumerated and specified by their 
respective names) and all the future increase of all the 
females be, and they are hereby fully and entirely liberated, 
and forever emancipated and set free from the involuntary 
service of all and every person or persons whatsoever; and 
that no operation of any law whatsoever shall be allowed, 
or in any wise prevent the said slaves from receiving and 
enjoying their full, entire and complete freedom and 
emancipation, I will and direct that my executor or admin- 
istrator hereinafter named, shall procure a home for the 
slaves, or persons above liberated, in some non-slavehold- 

x Will Book No. 1, p. 90, New Records, Clerk's Office, Prince 
George County, Virginia. 

2 Deed Book B., p. 467, Clerk's Office, Clarke County, Virginia. 

Note: William Meade was the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese 
of Virginia from 1829 to 1862. 



SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860 117 

ing state, and for this purpose I hereby appropriate the 
sum of four thousand dollars, to be laid out in land, 
farming utensils, and bearing their expenses, and if any 
overplus shall remain, I direct it to be equally divided 
among them all, and given to the fathers and mothers for 
their joint use and benefit." 1 

Extract from will of Albert Early, of Madison County, 
dated the 25th of May, 1839, admitted to probate 25th 
day of November, 1847: 

"I give and bequeath unto my above named executors 
all the negro slaves that I now own or may own ... I do 
most solemnly and seriously request and exhort them to 
do with my said negro slaves as I now prescribe, that it 
is my wish that they . . . should be liberated so that they 
may enjoy all the liberties and blessings of a free and 
independent people, and not approving the custom of 
liberating slaves to remain in the United States, I would 
recommend to my said executors to select for their resi- 
dence some section of country which . . . may supply 
them, the above named negro slaves, with all the comforts 
and necessaries that may render their lives as agreeable 
and easy as possible." 

The will further authorizes the executors to sell so much 
of the lands and other property of the testator as may be 
necessary to pay his debts and then to apply so much of 
the proceeds as the above named " executors may think 
proper for the removal and settlement of my above named 
negro slaves." 

The will concludes: 

"That it is owing to no malignity of feelings towards 
my relations that I have thus disposed of my negro slaves, 
but because I think they own enough of them without 

l Will Book No. 10, p. 17, Clerk's Office, Orange County, Virginia. 



118 SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860 

mine and I think that they are a general evil and withal 
I deprecate the principle." 1 

Extract from the will of John Warwick, of Amherst 
County, admitted to probate March 20th, 1848 : 

"I, John Warwick, of the County of Amherst, ... do 
make, publish and declare this my last true will and 
testament. . . . 

" First : The future condition of my slaves has long been 
a subject of anxious concern with me, and it is my deliberate 
intention, wish, and desire that the whole of them be 
manumitted and set free as soon after my demise as the 
growing crops shall be safe and the annual hires terminated, 
not later than the end of the year of my death, to be 
removed, or so many of them as I do not manumit and 
send to a free state during my life, with the exception 
hereinafter named, and settled in one or more of the free 
states of this Union under the care and direction of my 
executors, hereinafter appointed. Indiana is my choice. 

"Second: To carry out the above bequest . . . next to 
the payment of any debts I may owe, my funeral expenses, 
and the charges of administration of my estate, I hereby 
declare that it is my wish and intention that my slaves 
shall on being emancipated have the whole of my estate 
now in being, or hereafter to be acquired, . . . for the 
purpose of creating a suitable fund in the hands of my 
executors for their comfortable clothing, outfit, travelling 
expenses and settlement in their new homes". 3 

Extract from the will of Frances Eppes of Henrico 
County, admitted to probate February 7th, 1848. 

'See Will Book No. 8, p. 202, Clerk's Office, Madison County, 
Virginia. 

2 See Will Book No. 11, p. 577, Clerk's Office, Amherst County, 
Virginia. 

Note: The appraisement of Mr. Warwick's estate showed that 
he owned seventy-four slaves at the time of his death, and his 
executor, Dr. David Patteson, removed them to the State of Ohio. 



SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860 119 

"It is my will and desire that all my slaves shall be 
emancipated and set free — and I do hereby emancipate 
and set free the following slaves, and the increase of the 
females among them, namely — " (Here follow the names 
of the slaves, twenty-seven in number) — "And with a 
view to accomplish this my intention in an effectual manner 
it is my will and desire that at my decease all my slaves 
of every description be committed to the special care 
and trust of my friends Joseph J. Pleasants of the County 
of Hanover, in this state, and Joseph Jones of the State of 
Ohio. . . . 

"It is my will and desire that after all my just debts 
are paid, all the property of every description of which I 
may die seized, or the proceeds arising therefrom as may 
seem best to my executors hereinafter named, be divided 
among the said slaves so emancipated in such manner as 
the executors may deem fair and proper." 1 

Extract from the will of Sampson Sanders, of Cabell 
County, admitted to probate July 9th, 1849: 

"It is my will and desire that all my slaves of every 
age and sex be free at the time of my death from all in- 
voluntary servitude. . . . 

" I hereby direct my executors ... to collect so much 
of my estate as may be necessary to buy land for my said 
slaves in the State of Indiana or some one of the free states 
of the United States of America as may be necessary for 
their comfortable support . . . assigning each head of a 
family their proper proportion of land . . . binding the 
heads of families and other young men for the comfortable 
support of the old and decrepit or weakly slaves during 
their natural lives. I hereby give and bequeath to my 
said slaves $15,000.00 to be paid out of my estate by my 
executors aforesaid." 2 

l Will Book No. 12, p. 495, Clerk's Office, Henrico County, Virginia. 
Will Book A., p. 391, Clerk's Office, Cabell County, West 
Virginia. 



120 SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860 

Extract of will of Joseph Early, of Madison County, 
dated 22nd of December, 1852, and admitted to probate 
August 24th, 1854: 

"My will is that my executors hereinafter named send 
my negroes that I now have to Liberia — give each of the 
men, — three in number — fifty dollars each and Verindy 
and all her children, one hundred dollars, to take with 
them, besides getting them out, and bacon enough to last 
them six months after they get to Liberia." 1 

Extract from the will of William D. Jennings, of Henrico 
County, admitted to probate August 1st, 1853: 

" I hereby manumit, emancipate and set free all the rest 
and residue of my slaves, viz.:" (Here follow the names 
of the slaves, thirty-four in number) "and request that 
they shall be sent to and settled in Africa, in some good 
location, to be approved by my executor, after conference 
with the agent of the American Colonization Society, at 
Washington City." 

The will further provides that after paying the debts of 
the estate the balance shall be applied : 

" To the expenses of removal to, and settling in Africa, 
of all the slaves hereby emancipated. After defraying the 
expenses of their said removal to Africa, it is my will and 
desire that the whole surplus of my estate then remaining 
(after paying debts and legacies) shall be divided among 
my said emancipated slaves as follows, viz.: — " (Here 
follow the names of the slaves). 2 

Extract from the will of Traverse D. Herndon, of Fau- 
quier County, dated the 2nd of December, 1854, and 
admitted to probate 25th of December, 1854: 

Will Book No. 9, p. 421, Clerk's Office, Madison County, Virginia. 
Will Book No. 14, p. 188, Clerk's Office, Henrico County, 
Virginia. 



SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860 121 

"Third: I desire that the servants formerly the property 
of Col. George Love, whose names and number have been 
sent on to the Colonization Society (The number thus 
designated were forty-eight, two have since been born) 
shall be sent to Liberia, so as to carry out the arrangements 
made with that society for their liberation, and I further 
wish that their expenses shall be paid to Baltimore, Md., 
and that my wife shall give them such an amount of money 
as she may think advisable." 1 

Extract from the will of Arthur B. Davies, of Amherst 
County, admitted to probate March 21st, 1853: 

"It is my will and desire that all my slaves, fifteen in 
number and named as follows, — " (Here follow their 
names) "together with their future increase, shall be 
liberated and become invested with their freedom at my 
death, and for the purpose of removing them to some free 
state if that be lawful, or to Liberia if that shall become 
necessary, it is my will and desire that the debt now due 
to me by Charles S. Brown be collected and be used as a 
fund to effect that object. It is my further wish that in 
case any of my said slaves shall of their own free will and 
accord prefer remaining in slavery rather than accepting 
freedom under the provisions of this clause, then it is my 
desire that they shall be permitted to choose masters 
amongst any of my legatees hereinafter mentioned, and 
thereafter to become their slaves for life — the parents in 
such case to choose also for such of their infant children 
as may not be capable of making their own election." 2 

Extract from the will of Philip Lightfoot, of Culpeper 
County, admitted to probate May 21st, 1855: 

"I hereby emancipate and set free all the slaves I may 
possess or be entitled to at the time of my decease, who 

Will Book No. 25, p. 274, Clerk's Office, Fauquier County, 
Virginia. 

Will Book No. 13, p. 51, Clerk's Office, Amherst County, Virginia. 



122 SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860 

are to enjoy their freedom as fully as if they had been 
born free. I give to each of my said slaves, without 
distinction of age or sex, the sum of one hundred dollars, 
to be paid to them respectively when my executor shall 
deliver to them their discharge from service. Moreover 
my executor is required to clothe each of them well, fur- 
nishing to each the necessary quantity of blankets and 
cause them to be moved to some place, or site, where they 
can enjoy their freedom, and I desire the clothing and 
expenses attending their removal to be paid out of my 
estate with the money on hand or money that can be first 
collected. 

" My old and infirm negroes (if any) are to be supported 
in a suitable manner by my estate." 1 

Extract from the will of William Smith, of Orange 
County, admitted to probate September 28th, 1857 : 

" It is my will and desire that my house servant, Maria, 
my man, Paul, and my woman, Celia, be allowed to choose 
their masters or mistresses or either, and when they have 
made such selection, I hereby give and bequeath them to 
such person or persons as they may respectively select, 
provided the person or persons, so selected by them, will 
take them as their property, but if they cannot be thus 
disposed of, then my executors are to select suitable 
places for them where they will be well clothed and taken 
care of upon the most reasonable and best terms they can, 
paying out of my estate such sums of money as may be 
necessary for this purpose." 2 

Extract from the will of George Washington Parke 
Custis, of Fairfax County, admitted to probate December 
7th, 1857: 

"And upon the legacies of my four granddaughters 

Will Book F., p. 222, Clerk's Office, Culpeper County, Virginia. 
Will Book No, 12, p. 267, Clerk's Office, Orange County, 
Virginia. 



SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860 123 

being paid, and my estates that are required to pay the said 
legacies being free of debt, I give freedom to my slaves, 
the said slaves to be emancipated by my executors in such 
manner as to my executors may seem most expedient 
and proper, the said emancipation to be accomplished in 
not exceeding five years from the time of my decease. 

"I do constitute and appoint as my executors, Lieut.- 
Col. Robert Edward Lee, Robert Lee Randolph, of ' Eastern 
View', Right Rev. Bishop Meade and George Washington 
Peter."' 

Extract from deed of Eliza W. Cocke, of Smithfield, 
dated January 5th, 1857: 

" Know all men by these presents that I, Eliza W. Cocke, 
of the Town of Smithfield, in the County of Isle of Wight, 
in the State of Virginia, from motives of benevolence have 
manumitted and set free from slavery, &c." 2 

Extract from the will of Louisa Muschett, of Prince 
William County, dated 19th March, 1856, and admitted 
to probate on the 12th February, 1858: 

" I will and desire all my servants to be hired out for 
three years, and at the end of that time, to be free, each 
grown servant to have fifty dollars, and each child to have 
twenty-five dollars." 3 

Extract from the will of Robert Tinsley, of Amherst 
County, dated March 12, 1859, and admitted to probate 
January 20, 1862: 

Will Book No. 7, p. 267, Clerk's Office, Fairfax County, Virginia. 

Note: Robert E. Lee qualified as executor under this will and 
executed in 1862 the necessary papers emancipating the testator's 
slaves of whom there were one hundred and ninety-six. 

'Deed Book No. 39, p. 344, Clerk's Office, Isle of Wight County, 
Virginia. 

3 See Will Book Q., p. 433, Clerk's Office, Prince William County, 
Virginia. 



124 SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860 

" It is my will and desire that the residue of my slaves 
and future increase be emancipated and removed at the 
expense of my estate to one of the free states of this Union. 
Although there are some legal impediments, I suppose 
with the provisions I intend for them they can be settled 
in Ohio, or some other of the Western States. I wish 
them settled in families upon tracts of land to be pur- 
chased and secured to them to the amount of one hundred 
dollars a head, and furnished with a substantial suit of 
clothes suitable to the season and plain provisions sufficient 
for a year's supply, and this is to be done as soon as suffi- 
cient funds can be raised from collection of debts in aid 
of any money I may leave on hand. . . . 

" If the slaves cannot be settled in Ohio, or some other 
free state of this Union, I wish them properly equipped 
and sent to Liberia at the expense of my estate." 1 

No attempt has been made to present extracts from all 
the great number of deeds and wills which are to be found 
of record in the various clerks' offices throughout Virginia 
but the foregoing have been selected as fairly representa- 
tive, both with respect to the time of their execution, the 
different sections of the state in which they are to be 
found, and the social position of the emancipators. They 
are also illustrative of the great number of emancipations 
and of the difficulties and expenses incurred by Virginia 
slaveholders in effectuating that result. 

Will Book No. 16, p. 106, Clerk's Office, Amherst County, 
Virginia. 



XVIII 

The Small Number of Slaveholders in Virginia as 
Compared with Her Whole White Population 

Among the many widespread misconceptions which 
existed with respect to slavery in Virginia, was the im- 
pression that the great majority of her citizens were slave- 
holders; that the slaves were scattered throughout the 
state, enriching by their labors every community, and that 
thus their emancipation was opposed from purely pecuniary 
motives. A presentation of the actual conditions will suf- 
fice to demonstrate that this impression was erroneous. 
The facts show that the slaveholders constituted a small 
minority of the population, and that, with comparatively 
few exceptions, the great body of the slaves were to be 
found within certain well defined sections of the state. 

The United States census for 1860 fixes the white popu- 
lation of Virginia at 1,047,299 and the number of slave- 
holders at 52,128.' Admiral Chadwick, in his work, 
Causes of the Civil War, says: "Of the 52,128 slave- 
holders in Virginia, one-third held but one or two slaves; 
half held one to four; there were but one hundred and four- 
teen persons in the whole state who owned as many as a 
hundred each, and this out of a population of over a million 
whites." 3 

Thus, out of a population of over one million, only some 

^th Census, 1860, Vol. on Agriculture, p. 245. 
2 Caicses of the Civil War, American Nation Series, Chadwick, 
p. 33. 

125 



126 AREA AND POPULATION OF STATE 

fifty odd thousand men, women and children, were slave- 
holders, one-third of whom held only one or two slaves. 
If to the slaveholders be added such a number as would 
fairly represent those who were indirectly interested in 
a pecuniary way in slavery, the fact remains, that the 
overwhelming majority possessed no such incentive to 
support the institution. 

By this same census the area of Virginia was fixed at 
64,770 square miles, divided into one hundred and forty- 
eight counties. By an analysis of the census returns, it 
will appear that in the portion of the state lying west of 
the Blue Ridge Mountains, embracing eighty counties and 
37,992 square miles, there were 596,293 whites and only 
66,766 slaves; while in the remaining sixty-eight counties 
containing 26,778 square miles, there were only 451,006 
whites and 424,099 slaves. Even with respect to this last 
mentioned portion of the state the slaves were not evenly 
distributed but were congested in certain well defined 
localities. Thus of the 424,099 slaves in the sixty-eight 
counties lying east of the Blue Ridge, 173,109 were in 
twenty-two counties situated between James River and 
the North Carolina border known as the "Black Belt," 
the white population of which was only 128,303. 

The foregoing facts have an important bearing upon the 
statement so often found in the writings of historians and 
publicists, that the white population of Virginia and the 
South was composed in large measure of "slaveholders, 
arrogant and rich," and "poor whites," and that in the 
Civil War the former fought to defend their property 
interests in slaves, and the latter from a deep-seated fear 
that emancipation would reduce them to the social level 
of the blacks. It would seem impossible for such con- 
ditions to exist in counties and cities where the whites 



"ARROGANT SLAVEHOLDERS" 127 

largely outnumbered the blacks. " Arrogant slaveholders," 
counting their slaves by the .scores and dominating the 
social and economic fortunes of their white neighbors, 
could be found only in sections where the slaves greatly 
outnumbered the whites. While agriculture was undoubt- 
edly the pursuit in which a great majority of the people 
of Virginia was engaged, yet this majority was not made 
up of "arrogant slaveholders" and "poor whites." The 
United States census showed that the great body of her 
white people were small farmers, wage-earners, mechanics, 
merchants and professional men, with some not incon- 
siderable number of miners, fishermen and employees in 
manufactories. The prosperous, among this more num- 
erous element of her population, had little or no pecuniary 
interests in slave property, while the poorer classes enter- 
tained as little fear for the preservation of their social status 
from the abolition of slavery, as they had pecuniary stake 
in its maintenance. 



XIX 

The Injurious Effects of Slavery upon the 
Prosperity of Virginia 

From the foregoing statistics it appears that the slave- 
holders of Virginia constituted a small minority of her 
population, and that the slaves themselves were so grouped 
that the pecuniary advantage of their presence to the state 
— if any such advantage existed — was limited to certain 
well defined portions of her territory. That the institution 
of slavery, however, was a positive disadvantage to the 
material prosperity of Virginia is proved by the fact that 
free states, not half so richly endowed with natural 
resources, had far outstripped her in wealth and population, 
and also that as between the white and the slave sections of 
the commonwealth, the former were more prosperous. 

Mr. Bancroft, writing in 1856, affirmed the truth of this 
position. 

"Washington," he says, "was the director of his com- 
munity of black people in their labor, mainly for their own 
subsistence. For the market, they produced scarcely any- 
thing but a 'little wheat'; and after a season of drought 
even their own support had to be eked out from other re- 
sources, so that with all his method and good judgment he, 
like Madison of a later day, and in accord with common 
experience in Virginia, found that where negroes continued 
on the same land, and they and all their increase were 
maintained upon it, their owner would become more and 
more embarrassed or impoverished." 1 

iffistory of United States, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p. 179. 
128 



THE BLIGHT OF SLAVERY UPON VIRGINIA 129 

Again the same author, contrasting the profitable char- 
acter of slavery in the Cotton States, with its unprofitable- 
ness in Maryland and Virginia, says: "In the Northern- 
most of the Southern States slavery maintained itself, not 
as an element of prosperity, but as a baneful inheritance." 1 

In no way were the injurious effects of slavery more 
potent or more manifest than in retarding the growth of the 
white population of the state. The presence of the institu- 
tion not only turned the tide of immigration from Virginia, 
but, during the three decades preceding the Civil War, it 
promoted a steady exodus of the whites from the slave- 
holding sections. Admiral Chadwick records that, " Nearly 
400,000 Virginians were, in 1860, living in other states — 
nearly all of them Western, 75,874 in Ohio alone." 2 

Not only are the foregoing recitals true but it is equally 
true that their direful import was profoundly appreciated. 
Not all the people of Virginia lived in a Fool's Paradise. 
They balanced the known burdens of slavery against the 
anticipated burdens of emancipation — they compared the 
dangers and losses of present conditions with the problems 
of a future in which the slaves would be free, yet still in 
their midst ; but by no calculation could the continuance of 
slavery be upheld because of the pecuniary benefits derived 
from its existence. The published sentiments of Virginians 
during the three decades immediately preceding the Civil 
War will serve to confirm this position. 

Among the petitions presented to the Virginia Con- 
vention of 1829-30, was one from the citizens of Staunton, 
praying the abolition of slavery. 

"We waive," the petition recited, "at present the con- 
cern, p. 262. 
2 Causes of Civil War, Chadwick, p. 35. 



130 INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF SLAVERY 

siderations of religion and humanity, which belong to this 
momentous subject, and present it as a naked question 
of policy, wisdom and safety. . . . We affirm that the 
possession and management of slaves form a source of end- 
less vexation and misery within the house, and a waste and 
drain on the farm; . . . that the waste of the products 
of the land, nay, of the land itself is bringing poverty upon 
all its inhabitants; that this poverty and the supineness of 
our population either prevent the institution of schools 
through the country or keep them in the most languid and 
inefficient condition; and that the same causes must 
obviously paralyze all our schemes and efforts for the need- 
ful improvement of the country. . . . 

" It is conceded on all hands that Virginia is in a state 
of moral and political retrogression among the states of the 
Confederacy. . . . We humbly suggest our belief, that the 
slavery which exists, and which, with gigantic strides, is 
gaining ground amongst us, is, in truth, the great efficient 
cause of the multiple evils which we all deplore. We can- 
not conceive that there is any other cause sufficiently 
operative to paralyze the energies of a people so mag- 
nanimous, to neutralize the blessings of Providence, in- 
cluded in the gift of a land so happy in its soil, its climate, 
its minerals and its waters and to annul the manifold advan- 
tages of our Republican freedom and geographical position. 
If Virginia has already fallen from the high estate, and if 
we have assigned the true cause of her fall, it is with utmost 
anxiety that we look forward to the future, to the fatal 
termination of the scene." 1 

To show that the views here expressed by the citizens 
of Staunton were not peculiar to the people of that locality 
we insert extracts from speeches made two years later 
by representatives in the Virginia Legislature, from coun- 
ties as widely separated as Fauquier and Rockbridge, 
Berkeley and Buckingham. 

Wiles' Register, Vol. XXXVI, No. 932, p. 356. 



VIEWS OF FAULKNER AND BOLLING 131 

Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier County, speaking in 1832, 
in the Virginia House of Delegates, said : 

"Our towns are stationary, our villages almost every- 
where declining and the general aspect of the country 
marks the course of a wasteful, idle, reckless population, 
who have no interest in the soil, and care not how much 
it is impoverished. Public improvements are neglected, 
and the entire continent does not present a region for 
which Nature has done so much and art so little. If 
cultivated by free labor, the soil of Virginia is capable of 
sustaining a dense population among whom labor would be 
honourable, and where the busy hum of men would tell 
that all were happy and that all were free." 1 

In the same debate, Charles J. Faulkner, of Berkeley 
County, said: 

"Sir, if there be one who concurs with that gentleman, 
(Mr. Gholson, of Brunswick) in the harmless character of 
that institution, let me request him to compare conditions 
of the slaveholding portion of this commonwealth, barren, 
desolate and seared, as it were, by the avenging hand of 
Heaven, with the descriptions which we have of this same 
country from those who first broke its virgin soil. To 
what is this change ascribable? Alone to the withering, 
blasting effects of slavery." 2 

Philip A. Boiling, of Buckingham County, said : 

" If we turn our eyes to that part of the country which 
lies below the mountains, and particularly below the falls 
of the rivers, it seems as if some judgment from Heaven 
had poured over it and scarred it; fields once cultivated 
are now waste and desolate; the eye is no longer cheered 

Virginia Slavery Debate, 1832, White, Speech of Thomas 
Marshall, p. 6. 

2 Idem, Speech of Charles J. Faulkner, p. 7. 



132 views of Mcdowell and harrison 

by the rich verdure that decked it in other days; no, sir, 
but fatigued by an interminable wilderness of worn out, 
gullied, piney old fields." 1 

James McDowell, in the same debate, said: 

"Sir, it is true of Virginia, not merely that she has not 
advanced, but that in many respects she has greatly 
declined; and what have we got as a compensation for this 
decline? As a compensation for this disparity between 
what Virginia is and what she might have been? Nothing 
but the right of property in the very beings who have 
brought this disparity upon us. This is our pay; this is 
what we have gotten to remunerate us for our delinquent 
prosperity; to repay us for our desolated fields; our torpid 
enterprise; and in this dark day of our humbled import- 
ance, to sustain our hopes and to soothe our pride as a 
people." 2 

Jesse Burton Harrison, in an article published in the 
American Quarterly Review, December, 1832, sets out at 
length the poverty of Virginia, and the disastrous effects 
of slavery upon her industrial development. 

"What," says Mr. Harrison, "is now the productive 
value of an estate of lands and negroes in Virginia? We 
state as a result of extensive inquiries, embracing the last 
fifteen years, that a very great portion of the larger plan- 
tations, with from fifty to one hundred slaves, actually 
bring their proprietors in debt at the end of the short 
term of years, notwithstanding what would once, in Virginia, 
have been deemed very sheer economy ; that much the larger 
part of the considerable land-owners are content if they 
barely meet their plantation expenses without a loss of 
capital, and that those who make any profit, it will, in 

^Virginia Slavery Debate, 1832, White, Speech of Philip A. Boi- 
ling, p. 14. 

2 Idem, Speech of James McDowell, p. 18. 



VIEWS OF HENRY RUFFNER 133 

none but rare instances, average more than one to one 
and a half per cent, on the capital invested. The case 
is not materially varied with the smaller proprietors. 
Mr. Randolph of Roanoke, whose sayings have so generally 
the raciness and truth of proverbs, has repeatedly said in 
Congress that the time was coming when the masters 
would run away from their slaves, and be advertised by 
them in the public papers. ... Of the white emigrants 
from Virginia, at least half are hard working who carry 
away with them little beside their tools and a stout heart 
of hope. The mechanics' trades have failed to give them 
bread. Commerce, she has little, shipping none, and it 
is a fact that the very staple of the state, tobacco, is not 
exported by her own capital. The state does virtually 
a commission business in it. All the sources of pros- 
perity, moral and economical, are deadened; there is 
general discontent with one's lot; in some of the first 
settled and choicest part of her territory symptoms are 
not wanting of desolate antiquity. And all this in youth- 
ful America, and in Virginia too, the fairest region of 
America and with a race of people inferior to none in the 
world in its capacity to constitute a prosperous nation." 

In the address of Dr. Henry Ruffner, President of 
Washington College, delivered in 1847, heretofore quoted 
from, the author by a mass of statistics shows how slavery 
had injured the state by decimating its white population, 
paralyzing its agriculture and almost destroying its manu- 
facturing and commercial interests. 

"We esteem it," says Dr. Ruffner, "a sad, a humiliating 
fact which should permeate the heart of every Virginian, 
that from the year 1790 to this time, Virginia has lost 
more people by emigration than all the old free states 
together. Up to 1840, when the last census was taken, 
she had lost more by near three hundred thousand. . . . She 
has sent, or we should rather say, she has driven from her 
soil, at least one-third of all the emigrants who have gone 



134 VIEWS OF HENRY RUFFNER 

from the old states to the new. ... It is in the last period 
of ten years from 1830 to 1840, that this consuming plague 
of slavery has shown its worst effects in the old Southern 
States. . . . East Virginia actually fell off twenty-six thou- 
sand in population; and with the exception of Richmond 
and one or two other towns, her population continues to 
decline. Old Virginia was the first to sow this land of 
ours with slavery; she was also the first to reap the full 
harvest of destruction." 

The author then proceeds to show from the report of 
Professor George Tucker, of the University of Virginia, 
that in New England agriculture yields an annual value 
averaging one hundred and eighty dollars per hand; and 
the Southern States a hundred and thirty dollars per hand; 
and proceeds: "Now it is admitted on all hands that 
slave labor is better adapted to agriculture than to any 
other branch of industry ; and that, if not good for agricul- 
ture, it is really good for nothing." 

Referring to the subject of manufactures, and the blight- 
ing influence of slavery thereon, the author says : " Of 
all the states in this Union, not one has on the whole such 
various and abundant resources for manufacturing as 
our own Virginia both East and West." 

Notwithstanding these advantages, the author demon- 
strates from the census that the state has scarcely entered 
upon the work of manufacturing her raw material. Thus 
in four leading manufactures, the output in New York 
was twenty-one millions, New Jersey, six millions, and 
Pennsylvania, sixteen millions in value; while that of 
Virginia was two and three-fourths millions. With 
respect to the commerce of the state, the author, after 
pointing out her exceptional advantages growing out of 
her fine harbors and numerous rivers, declares: 



VIEWS OF R. R. HOWISON 135 

"That the commerce of our old slave-eaten common- 
wealth has decayed and dwindled away to a mere pittance 
in the general mass of American trade. 

" The value of her exports, which, twenty-five or thirty 
years ago, averaged four or five millions a year shrunk by 
1842 to two millions eight hundred and twenty thousand 
dollars, and by 1845 to two million one hundred thousand 
dollars/' 

"Her imports from foreign countries were, in the year 
1765, valued at upwards of four millions of dollars; in 
1791 they had sunk to two and one-half millions; in 1821 
they had fallen to a little over one million; in 1827 they 
had come down to about half this sum; and in 1843 to the 
half of this again, or about one-quarter of a million; and 
here they have stood ever since — at next to nothing." . . . 

"Why should every commercial improvement, every 
wheel that speeds the movement of trade, serve but to 
carry away from the slave states more and more of their 
wealth for the benefit of the great Northern cities? 
The only cause that can be assigned is that where 
slavery prevails, commerce and navigation cannot flourish, 
and commercial towns cannot compete with those in the 
free states." 1 

R. R. Howison, in his History of Virginia, published in 
1848, replying to the question whether the state has 
prospered: "As her physical resources would warrant us 
in expecting: has she held her place in the great march 
of American States during the present century?" answers: 

"It has long been the sad conviction of her most en- 
lightened children that these questions must be answered 
in the negative. ... It must, therefore, be regarded as a 
truth, but too fully established, that Virginia has fallen 
below her duty; that she has been indolent while others 
have been laborious; that she has been content to avoid 
a movement positively retrograde while others have gone 

l The Ruffner Pamphlet. 



136 VIRGINIA'S INDUSTRIAL STATUS, 1852 

rapidly forward. Her motion compared with that of 
Massachusetts and Ohio might, in familiar terms, be likened 
to the heavy stage coach of the past century, competing 
with the fine steam car of the present. 

" For this sluggishness and imbecility many causes might 
be assigned, . . . but there are three sources in which, as 
we believe, the evil dispositions of our state so naturally 
flow that they ought to receive special notice." 

These were, want of popular educational facilities, lack 
of internal improvements, and the existence of slavery. 1 
The author says : 

" The last and most important cause unfavorably affect- 
ing Virginia which we shall mention is the existence of 
slavery within her bounds. We have already seen the 
origin and progress of this institution. As to its evils, 
we have nothing new to offer; they have long been felt 
and acknowledged by the most sagacious minds in our 
state." 2 

Bishop Meade, in a note to his history, Old Churches, 
Ministers and Families in Virginia, published in 1857, 
referring to the injurious effects of slavery upon Virginia's 
agricultural development, says: "That the agriculture of 
Virginia has suffered in times past from the use of slaves, 
we think most evident from the deserted fields, impover- 
ished estates and emigrating population." 3 

In 1852, the Virginia Agricultural Society was organized, 
having among its membership and founders, the foremost 
planters and citizens of the state. From an address 
issued at the time, we make the following compilations 
and extracts: 

^History of Virginia, Howison, Vol. II, pp. 510-511. 
^History of Virginia, Howison, Vol. II, p. 517. 
3 Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, Meade, Vol. 
I, p. 90. 



VIRGINIA'S INDUSTRIAL STATUS, 1856 137 

After reciting that Virginia was a community of farmers 
— eight-tenths of her industry being expended upon the 
soil, the address proceeds to point out that out of thirty- 
nine millions of acres she tills only a little over ten millions; 
that New York, on the other hand, with twenty-nine and 
a half millions, has subdued to the plough twelve and a 
quarter; while Massachusetts has reclaimed from the 
forests, quarry and marsh, two and one-tenth out of her 
little territory of five millions of acres; that the live stock 
of Virginia was worth only $3.31 for every arable acre; the 
live stock of New York, $6.07; and the live stock of Massa- 
chusetts, $4.52; that the proportion of hay for the same 
quantity of land was eighty-one pounds for Virginia, six 
hundred and seventy-nine pounds for New York, and six 
hundred and eighty-four pounds for Massachusetts; that 
whilst the population of Virginia had increased during the 
previous ten years in a ratio of eleven to sixty-six, New 
York had increased twenty-seven to fifty-two, and Massa- 
chusetts thirty-four to eighty-one. The address then pro- 
ceeds: 

"In the above figures, carefully selected from the data 
of authentic documents, we find no cause for self-gratula- 
tion, but some food for meditation. They are not without 
use to those who would improve the future by the past. 
They show that we have not done our part in the bringing 
of land into cultivation; that notwithstanding natural 
advantages which greatly exceed those of the two states 
drawn into parallel with Virginia, we are yet behind them 
both. . . . 

" When we contemplate our field of labor and the work 
we have done in it, we cannot but observe the sad contrast 
between capacity and achievement. With a widespread 
domain, with a kindly soil, with a climate whose sun 
radiates fertility and whose very dews distill abundance, 



138 VIRGINIA'S INDUSTRIAL STATUS, 1856 

we find our inheritance so wasted that the eye aches to 
behold the prospect." 1 

Henry A. Wise, in the canvass of 1856, preliminary to his 
election to the office of Governor, depicted the financial 
and industrial conditions then existing in Virginia. 

"Commerce," said he, "has long ago spread her sails 
and sailed away from you. You have not, as yet, dug 
more than coal enough to warm yourselves at your own 
hearths; you have not yet spun more than coarse cotton 
enough in the way of manufacture to clothe your own 
slaves. You have no commerce, no mining, no manu- 
factures. You have relied alone upon the single power 
of agriculture — and such agriculture! Your sedge patches 
outshine the sun. Your inattention to your only source 
of wealth has scarred the very bosom of mother earth." 2 

It will be observed that neither the authors of the 
address issued by the Agricultural Society of Virginia, nor 
Governor Wise, attribute the poverty and backwardness 
of Virginia to the institution of slavery. Their statements, 
however, are none the less valuable as showing the status — 
financial and industrial — to which Virginia had been 
reduced. 

1 A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, Olmstead, Vol. I, 
pp. 187-189. 

2 The Impending Crisis in the South, Helper, p. 90. 



XX 

The Custom of Buying and Selling Slaves — 
Virginia's Attitude 

But it is charged that while slavery was unprofitable in 
Virginia, as a system of labor, yet the state had become a 
"breeding ground" where slaves were reared and sold for 
profit and that the advantages accruing from this traffic had 
destroyed all sentiment in favor of emancipation, and so 
lowered the moral standards of the people that, in 1861, 
they stood ready to fight for the maintenance of slavery 
and the inter-state slave trade. 

Mr. Fiske says : 

" The life of the anti-slavery party in Virginia was short. 
After the abolition of the African slave trade in 1808 had 
increased the demand for Virginia-bred slaves in the states 
farther south, the very idea of emancipation faded out of 
memory." 1 

The biographers of Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, say: 

"The condition of Virginia had become anomalous; it 
was little understood by the North and still less by her own 
citizens. . . . She still deemed she was the mother of 
Presidents: whereas she had degenerated into being like 
other Border States, the mother of slave breeders and of an 
annual crop of black-skinned chattels to be sold to the 
cotton, rice, and sugar planters of her neighboring common- 
wealths. . . . However counterfeit logic or mental reser- 
vations concealed it, the underlying feeling was to fight, no 

l Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, Fiske, Vol. II, p. 191. 
139 



140 CHARACTER OF VIRGINIANS, 1860 

matter whom, and little matter how, for the protection of 
slavery and slave property "* 

Let us apply to these charges what in lieu of a better 
term we will call the law of probabilities. Is it probable 
that the anti-slavery sentiments alluded to as being so 
strong in Virginia immediately succeeding the Revolution 
would have perished as early as 1808, simply because 
slaves had appreciated in value? While Washington and 
Henry and Mason died prior to 1808, yet their great com- 
patriots Jefferson, Marshall, Madison and Monroe lived to 
dates long subsequent, filling the highest positions in the 
gift of the state and nation. 

Will it be seriously urged that these men and others, of 
only less prominence, lost their influence with their country- 
men because of the debasing influences of the domestic 
slave trade? 

Again, it may be questioned whether between the date 
indicated, and the outbreak of the Civil War, the Virginians 
had so further degenerated as to stand ready to fight for 
slavery and property in slaves. While Virginia, in the 
period of the Civil War, presented no statesmen comparable 
to those of the Revolution, yet in all the elements of inspir- 
ing manhood, valor, sacrifice and devotion, her people were 
not one whit behind their ancestors. The debasing effects 
of "slave breeding" had not corrupted the great body of 
her people: if so, how can we account for the bearing of 
Virginians at Gettysburg, and on other fields of test only 
less heroic? Speaking of their part in that historic battle, 
Charles Francis Adams says: 

" If in all recorded warfare there is a deed of arms, the 
1 Abraham Lincoln, A History, N. & H., Vol. Ill, p. 413. 



CHARACTER OF LEE AND HIS SOLDIERS 141 

name and memory of which the descendants of those who 
participated therein should not wish to see obliterated from 
any record, be it historian's page or battle flag, it was the 
advance of Pickett's Virginian Division across the wide 
valley of death in front of Cemetery Ridge. I know in all 
recorded warfare of no finer, no more sustained and deadly 
feat of arms." 1 

What of the Cadets at the Battle of New Market? Were 
those young heroes the sons of "slave breeders" and 
nurtured in homes darkened by such a debasing practice? 
What of the spirit and bearing of the great body of Vir- 
ginia soldiers who followed Lee, and what place shall they 
and their commander take in the estimation of the world's 
best thought and conscience? President Roosevelt says: 

"The world has never seen better soldiers than those 
who followed Lee, and their leader will undoubtedly rank 
as, without any exception, the very greatest of all the 
great captains that the English-speaking peoples have 
brought forth." 2 

What of Lee's character as a man, aside from his genius 
as a soldier? Lord Wolseley says : 

" I have met many of the great men of my time, but Lee 
alone impressed me with the feeling that I was in the pres- 
ence of a man who was cast in a grander mould, and made 
of different and of finer metal than all other men. He is 
stamped upon my memory as a being apart and superior to 
all others in every way; a man with whom none I ever 
knew, and very few of whonrl have read, are worthy to be 
classed. I have met but two men who realized my ideas 
of what a true hero should be; my friend, Charles Gordon 
was one, General Lee was the other. " 3 

x Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers, Adams, p. 425. 
l Thomas H. Benton, Roosevelt, p. 34. 
^Robert E. Lee, Wolseley, p. 12. 



142 RHODES' ESTIMATE OF LEE 

James Ford Rhodes says: 

" A careful survey of his (Lee's) character and life must 
lead the student of men and affairs to see that the course 
he took was, from his point of view, and judged by his 
inexorable and pure conscience, the path of duty to which 
a high sense of honor called him. Could we share the 
thoughts of that high-minded man as he paced the broad 
pillared veranda of his stately Arlington house, his eyes 
glancing across the river at the flag of his country waving 
over the dome of the capitol, and then resting on the soil 
of his native Virginia, we should be willing now to recog- 
nize in him one of the finest products of American Life." 1 

If such were the character of the Virginians of the Civil 
War period, is it reasonable to speak of their "degen- 
eracy" under the debasing influence of "slave breeding" 
and " the slave trade?" " Do men gather grapes of thorns 
or figs of thistles?" 

Again, how was it possible that this system of breeding 
slaves for market could have so established itself in Vir- 
ginia, and inspired the great body of her citizenship with a 
willingness to fight for its maintenance, in view of the 
existence of a public opinion which pursued with relentless 
ostracism the men who engaged in the traffic? For no 
offense was the public opinion of Virginia so merciless as 
for that of buying and selling slaves. More than for any 
other crime, the disgrace of its guilt passed beyond the 
offender to his innocent offspring. The existence of this 
public sentiment is an historic fact of unquestioned 
verity. 

Writing in 1854, Reverend Nehemiah Adams, of Boston, 
who visited Virginia in that year, says: "Negro traders are 

history of the United States, Rhodes, 1904, Vol. Ill, p. 413. 



HOSTILITY TO NEGRO-TRADERS 143 

the abhorrence of all flesh. Even their descendants where 
they are known, and the property acquired in the traffic, 
have a blot upon them." 1 

Abraham Lincoln, speaking on the 16th of October, 1854, 
at Peoria, Illinois, says: 

"Again, you have among you a sneaking individual of 
the class of native tyrants known as a slave-dealer. He 
watches your necessities and crawls up to buy your slaves 
at a speculative price. If you cannot help it, you sell to 
him, but if you can help it, you drive him from your door. 
You despise him utterly; you do not recognize him as a 
friend, or even as an honest man. Your children must not 
play with his; they may rollick freely with the little negroes, 
but not with the slave-dealer's children. ... If he grows 
rich and retires from business, you still remember him, and 
still keep up the ban of non-intercourse upon him and his 
family." 2 

It would seem impossible to reconcile the existence of 
this public sentiment with the idea that the state had 
degenerated into "the mother of slave breeders," and that 
her people, enamored of the profits, were given over to the 
work of rearing and selling slaves. 

Against the charge, however, that the abolition of the 
foreign slave trade in 1808 and the contemporaneous 
invention of the cotton gin so enhanced the market value 
of slaves as to destroy the sentiment previously existing 
in Virginia for their emancipation, we place the well- 
attested fact that anti-slavery sentiment did not die at the 
time and for the causes specified. The truth is just to the 
contrary. Anti-slavery sentiments among the people grew 

iSouth Side View of Slavery, Adams, p. 78. 

^Abraham Lincoln, Letters, Speeches and State Papers, N. & H., 
Vol. I, p. 194. 



144 ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT, 1832 

steadily during the next quarter of a century. The setback 
which occurred in 1832-33 arose, as we have seen, from other 
causes. The existence of the strongest anti-slavery senti- 
ment at the latter date cannot be questioned. Said Charles 
James Faulkner in the great debate in the Virginia Legis- 
lature of 1832: "Sir, I am gratified to perceive that no 
gentleman has yet arisen in this hall, the avowed advocate 
of slavery. The day has gone by when such a voice could 
be listened to with patience or even forbearance.'' 

George Ticknor Curtis, of Boston, writing a half century 
later, says : " It may be asserted as positively as anything 
in history that in the year 1832 there was nowhere in the 
world a more enlightened sense of the wrong and evil of 
slavery than there was among the public men and people 
of Virginia." 2 

Was the anti-slavery sentiment of 1833 a reminiscence 
or a growth? Had it simply survived with diminishing 
strength the fervor of the Revolution or was it an increas- 
ing power which had its origin at that period? The Rev. 
Dr. Philip Slaughter writes: "That (1831) was the cul- 
minating point — the flood-tide of anti-slavery feeling which 
had been gradually rising for more than a century in 
Virginia." 3 

Thomas Jefferson Randolph in his speech before the 
Legislature of 1832 deplored the fact that Mr. Jefferson had 
not lived: "to see the revolution of the public mind of 
Virginia. He has not lived to see a majority of the House 
of Delegates in favor of abolition in the abstract." 1 

Washington and Jefferson have both left on record the 

Virginia Slavery Debate, 1832, White. 
2 Life of James Buchanan, Curtis, 1883, Vol. II, p. 277. 
^Virginian History of African Colonization, Slaughter, p. 55. 
Slavery Debate, 1832, White, T. J. Randolph's Speech, p. 13. 



GROWING POWER OF NON-SLAVEHOLDERS 145 

fact that the people»of Virginia of the Revolutionary period 
would not tolerate any proposal of emancipation. Mr. 
Randolph in his speech just quoted from said: " Sixty-two 
years ago when a proposition was made in the Legislature 
of Virginia by one of the oldest, ablest and most respected 
members ... to ameliorate the condition of the slaves he 
was . . . denounced as an enemy of his country." 

The constitutions of the ante and post-Revolutionary 
periods in Virginia all required property qualification as a 
prerequisite to the suffrage, and apportioned representa- 
tion in the General Assembly to the several cities and 
counties on the basis of property and white population, 
rather than on the latter alone. Under this system, the 
slaves being taxed as property, the slaveholders and their 
counties exercised a power far in excess of that enjoyed 
by their brethren in the non-slaveholding sections. The 
General Assembly elected every state official, including the 
Governor and the judges of the higher courts, and thus in 
the hands of that body was lodged complete control of 
every department of the state government. 

The constitution of 1830 admitted to the suffrage, in ad- 
dition to property-owners, only the citizen " who for twelve 
months next preceding (the election) has been a house- 
keeper and head of a family . . . and shall have been 
assessed with a part of the revenue of the commonwealth 
within the preceding year and actually paid the same." 
But this constitution retained in the hands of the General 
Assembly the election of all the state officials, including the 
Governor, and continued in force the "mixed basis" in 
apportioning representatives among the several cities and 
counties. 1 With suffrage thus restricted, with a General 

l Code of Virginia, 1849, pp. 35 to 45. 



146 GROWING POWER OF NON-SLAVEHOLDERS 

Assembly in which property in slaves secured for the slave- 
holders and their counties an additional representation 
over that of the non-slaveholders, and with every officer 
of the state government elected by the Legislature thus 
constituted, the political dominance of the slaveholding 
counties over the non-slaveholding counties will be readily 
appreciated. The scheme was alike inequitable and un- 
Republican, yet it was not until the Reform Convention 
of 1850-51 that white manhood suffrage was established, 
the privilege of electing all state officials accorded to the 
people, and the changes made with respect to the basis of 
representation which would have eventually accorded to 
all the counties and cities representation in the General 
Assembly in proportion to their white populations. 1 To 
strip the slaveholding counties of their political power, to 
admit on an equal basis to the suffrage every white man in 
the commonwealth, and to accord to the electorate thus 
constituted the privilege of electing every high state 
official did not indicate the growth of pro-slavery sentiment. 
These achievements of the Convention were confessedly 
the most signal victories for liberty and progress which 
had marked the history of Virginia since her liberation from 
British rule. These fundamental changes in the consti- 
tution and in the relative rights and powers of the slave- 
holders and the slaveholding sections, as compared with 
the non-slaveholders and non-slaveholding sections, were 
ratified by the people by a vote of 75,748 to 11,063 — only 
five counties in the state out of the one hundred and forty- 
eight giving majorities in the negative. 2 

Article III, Section 1, and Article IV, Section 5, Constitution of 
Virginia, 1851. 

^Representation in Virginia, Chandler, 1896, p. 7. 



XXI 

The Custom of Buying and Selling Slaves — 
Virginia's Attitude (Concluded) 

Approaching the subject from another side, and review- 
ing all the sources of evidence, we may reach certain fairly- 
accurate conclusions. At the close of the Revolution, 
Virginia was the largest slaveholding state in the Union. 
There soon grew up the conviction that in the dispersion or 
colonization beyond her borders of at least a large portion 
of this population lay the only method of effectually solving 
the slavery and racial problems. In consequence of this 
condition, various movements were evolved, some de- 
signedly for the attainment of these objects and others, 
while without such purpose, yet working to the same end. 

As we have seen, slaves when emancipated were required 
to leave the state within one year from such date. Mas- 
ters, ex-slaves and colonization societies were, therefore, 
all earnest to achieve this result. Hence arose the first 
cause for deportation — an influence and custom which con- 
tinued up to the Civil War. 

The prospects of improving their fortunes by emigrating 
to the newer states of Kentucky, Missouri and the South 
impelled large numbers of slaveholders to leave Vir- 
ginia. They carried their slaves with them and hence 
arose a second cause which operated to deport each year 
many slaves from the state. 

The ever increasing difficulty of obtaining (especially on 
the part of large slaveholders) any appreciable profit from 

147 



148 DEPORTATION OF SLAVES FROM VIRGINIA 

the labor of their slaves in the grain and tobacco fields of 
Virginia induced these proprietors to purchase cotton and 
sugar plantations in the South and thither from time to 
time to transport their slaves. These slaveholders did not 
always emigrate themselves. They simply changed the 
situs of their slaves, the latter being often accompanied by 
the sons of their masters. Thus a third cause carried 
annually from Virginia many hundreds of slaves. 

The high prices which slaves commanded on the planta- 
tions of the far South and in the sparsely settled portions of 
the Southwest engendered the practice of buying slaves in 
Virginia and selling them for profit in those sections. De- 
spite the opprobrium attached to this custom there were 
men willing to engage in the traffic and from choice or 
necessity there were slaveholders who supplied at least a 
portion of the demand. Hence, the fourth cause which 
contributed to the yearly deportation of slaves from 
Virginia. 

Neither the United States census nor any other official 
data avail to fix the number of slaves which annually went 
from Virginia for each of the four several reasons above 
referred to. It is evident, however, that, as a rule, pub- 
licists not informed as to the conditions have combined 
these exportations and attributed them all to the custom 
of selling slaves. We are safe in concluding, therefore, that 
the number of slaves sold annually from Virginia has been 
grossly exaggerated; that the custom was revolting to the 
moral sense of her people and maintained against an out- 
raged rather than a sympathetic public sentiment. 

Most of the writers who have laid this damaging accusa- 
tion at the door of the Virginia people have not attempted 
to fortify their position by authority or data of any kind. 
Others have and a careful analysis of the facts submitted 



ESTIMATE OF WILLIAM HENRY SMITH 149 

will assist in determining the measure of truth contained in 
the original charge. 

The recent work, A Political History of Slavery, by- 
William Henry Smith, will serve to illustrate the character 
of publications last referred to. The author after pointing 
out that the Cotton and Rice Producing States looked to the 
older commonwealth for supplies of laborers, proceeds : 

"Mr. Mercer, one of the ablest of the members of 
that remarkable Convention (the Virginia Convention of 
1829-30) said that the tables of the natural growth of the 
slave population demonstrated . . . that an annual rev- 
enue of not less than a million and a half of dollars had 
been derived from the exportation of a part of that increase. 
Seven years later the Virginia Times published an estimate 
of the money arising from the sale of slaves exported dur- 
ing the year 1836 making the aggregate $24,000,000.00, 
which showed the enormous profitableness of slave breed- 
ing." 1 

In support of this conclusion the author appends to his 
text three notes, as follows : 

First: "The Times gave the whole number exported at 
120,000 of whom 80,000 were taken out of the state by 
their owners who removed to new states and 40,000 were 
sold to dealers. The average price per head was $600." 
(Niles Register, Vol. LI, p. 83.) 

Second : " In the Legislature of Virginia in 1832 Thomas 
Jefferson Randolph declared that Virginia had been con- 
verted into ' one grand menagerie where men are reared for 
the market like oxen for the shambles.' This was con- 
firmed by Mr. Gholson, another member." (See Reports in 
the Richmond Whig, 1832.) 

Third: "In Virginia and other grain-growing states the 

l A Political History of Slavery, William Henry Smith, 1903, Vol. 
I, p. 3, 



150 SPEECH OF MR. MERCER 

blacks do not support themselves, and the only profit their 
masters derive from them is, repulsive as the idea may 
justly seem, in breeding them, like other live stock, for the 
more Southern states." (American Colonization Society, 
1833.) 

An examination of the speech made by Mr. Mercer on the 
occasion referred to, will show that he was answering the 
slaveholders' charge that they paid upon their slaves more 
than their just proportion of taxes, when compared with 
the amount paid by the land-owners of the state; he 
pointed out that for the four years following 1820 the land 
tax averaged $181,000.00 per annum and the slave tax 
$159,000.00, but for the current year (1829) the land tax 
amounted to $175,000.00 and the slave tax $97,000.00. 
" These facts, " said Mr. Mercer, " bear me out in the position 
that in the current year the capital in slaves is taxed less 
than that in land." The census showed an increase in the 
number of slaves still in the hands of their Virginia masters, 
while the " tables of the natural growth of this population" 
also demonstrated that large numbers must have been 
exported beyond the state. The portion of increase in the 
slave population, thus exported, Mr. Mercer estimated at 
a value of one and a half million dollars per annum. It will 
be observed that he makes no attempt to distribute this 
exportation between the various classes heretofore referred 
to. Indeed, the averment that "the tables of the natural 
growth of the slave population" demonstrated that an 
annual revenue of any specific sum had been derived from 
their exportation is, of course, inaccurate. The tables 
referred to simply indicate the normal rate of increase and 
the consequent number of slaves which must have been 
exported. Whether the excess had been emancipated, or 
carried, or sent, or sold by their masters did not, of course, 



ESTIMATE OF VIRGINIA TIMES 151 

appear. Mr. Mercer was not discussing the slave trade — 
he was pointing out the increase in the number of slaves 
which should normally accrue to their masters and the con- 
sequent reasonableness of the tax imposed upon them as 
compared with that assessed against the lands. 

It is believed that this explanation of the subject of Mr. 
Mercer's speech will qualify the conclusion which Mr. 
Smith has drawn from the statement cited in his text. 

The author next refers to an "estimate of the money 
arising from the sale of slaves during the year 1836 — mak- 
ing the aggregate $24,000,000.00." This estimate is cited 
as that of the Virginia Times and an explanation of how the 
figures are arrived at is set out by the author in the first of 
the three notes above quoted. 

By reference to Volume LI of Niles' Register, page 83, in 
which the extract from the Virginia Times appears, it will 
be seen that the latter paper does not attempt any dis- 
cussion of the subject, any marshalling of statistics or any 
conclusions of its own drawn therefrom. It simply recites 
in an item of ten lines — that — " We have heard intelligent 
men estimate the number of slaves exported from Virginia 
within the last twelve months at 120,000." The item 
further recites that of this number "not more than one- 
third have been sold, the others having been carried by 
their owners, who have removed, which would leave in the 
state the sum of $24,000,000.00 arising from the sale of 
slaves." 

"We have heard intelligent men estimate" is a some- 
what different statement from that of the author's text in 
which the Virginia Times is made to fix the exportation for 
the year 1836 at 120,000, 40,000 of whom were sold to 
dealers. How little value, however, can be attached to 
"the estimate" will be appreciated when we recall that an 



152 THE SALE OF SLAVES EXAGGERATED 

exportation of 120,000 slaves per annum would in four 
years have depopulated the state of every single slave. 
The census showed that there were 469,758 slaves in Vir- 
ginia in 1830 and 490,865 in 1860. By no possible process 
of computation can the Virginians of the period from 1830 
to 1840 be charged with "the enormous profitableness of 
slave-breeding," arising from annual sales of 40,000 slaves, 
and a quarter of a century later their descendants be con- 
victed of the crime of fighting to perpetuate the traffic. 
There would have been no slaves from which the commerce 
could have derived a supply. 

In his second note, Mr. Smith makes a quotation from 
the speech of Mr. Randolph in the Virginia Legislature of 
1832 wherein the latter is made to declare "that Virginia 
had been converted into one grand menagerie where men 
are reared for the market like oxen for the shambles." 

By reference to the whole sentence and its exact quota- 
tion it will appear that Mr. Randolph's statement was not 
intended to warrant the conclusion here sought to be con- 
veyed. Mr. Randolph said: 

" How can an honourable mind, a patriot and a lover of his 
country, bear to see this ancient Dominion, rendered illus- 
trious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons in 
the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie 
where men are to be reared for market like oxen for the 
shambles?" 1 

In the third note Mr. Smith cites an extract from the 
report of the "American Colonization Society, 1833." 

A careful examination of the report of the American 
Colonization Society, submitted at its meeting 1833, fails 

1 Slavery Debate, Virginia Legislature, 1833, Speech of T. J. 
Randolph, p. 13. 



MR. SMITH'S ERRONEOUS CITATIONS 153 

to show any such statement — or any phrases or sentiments 
from which such an accusation could be inferred. The 
report in its whole tenor and contents is just to the con- 
trary. Thus at page 16, referring to the condition of public 
sentiment in Virginia, it says : 

" That mighty evil (slavery) beneath which the minds of 
men had bowed in despair, has been looked at as no longer 
incurable. A remedy has been proposed; the sentiments of 
humanity, the secret wishes of the heart on this momentous 
topic have found a voice and the wide air has rung with it." 

Again, at page 17 it says: "Nearly half the colonists in 
Liberia have emigrated from Virginia ; and many citizens of 
that state have sought aid from the Society for removing 
thither their liberated slaves during the last year." 1 

A like inspection of the reports of the Society for the 
years from 1827 to 1837 inclusive shows no such statement 
as that cited by Mr. Smith in his footnote. The leading 
officers of the Society were Virginians and its work had their 
cordial sympathy and co-operation. Mr. Smith has evi- 
dently accepted the statement of some other writer without 
examining for himself the original sources of information. 2 

^Report of American Colonization Society presented January 20, 
1833, pp. 16 and 17. 

2 Professor Hart, of Harvard University, in his recent work, 
Slavery and Abolition, says: 

"The fact that some thousands of negroes every year left the 
Border States for the South seemed to show that there was profit 
in keeping them alive; but recent investigation seems to establish 
that the greater number of these negroes were taken in a body by 
the men who owned them to settle in other states." {Slavery and 
Abolition, Hart, p. 124). 



XXII 

Small Proportion of Slaveholders Among 
Virginia Soldiers 

The accusation that the people of Virginia of the 
Civil War period stood ready to fight "no matter whom 
and little matter how, for the protection of slavery and 
slave property," because of the profits derived from the 
inter-state slave trade, would seem to acquit those Virgini- 
ans who derived no benefit from the traffic. We have seen, 
from the facts heretofore presented, what a small propor- 
tion of the people of Virginia were owners of slaves; and 
all available data indicate a still less proportion of slave- 
holders among the soldiers which the state contributed 
to the armies of the Southern Confederacy. 

Professor A. B. Hart, of Harvard University, says : " Out 
of 12,500,000 persons, in the slave-holding communities 
in 1860, only about 384,000 persons — or one in thirty- 
three — was a slaveholder." 1 

The same author estimates that each slaveholder was 
the head of a family and that, therefore, 350,000 white 
families in the South, out of a total of 1,800,000, owned 
slaves; though 77,000 of these families owned only one 
slave each, and 200,000 of the remaining owned less than 
ten slaves each. 2 

The author is, of course, in error in assuming that every 
slaveholder was the head of a family. Doubtless in a 

1 Slavery and Abolition, Hart, p. 67. 
2 Jdem, p. 68. 

154 



SLAVEHOLDERS IN THE RANKS 155 

large majority of cases such was the fact. The Federal 
census, however, from which his first figures are taken, 
is correct in showing the exact number owning slaves. 
This number included men, women and children, and, 
not infrequently, a number of persons were part owners 
of the same slave or slaves, and yet each was enumerated 
as a slaveholder. 

Admiral Chadwick's analysis of the census returns for 
Virginia shows that of the 52,128 slaveholders in the 
state, one-third held but one or two slaves, half one to four, 
and that but one hundred and fourteen persons held as 
many as one hundred each. He also points out the fact 
that the great majority of the soldiers in the ranks of the 
Confederate Armies, from Virginia and the South, possessed 
no such interest. 

From a mass of data bearing more directly upon the 
number of slaveholders in the ranks of the Virginia soldiers, 
we select two citations : 

Major Robert Stiles, late a prominent member of the 
Richmond Bar, referring to the personnel of the Richmond 
Howitzers (of which he was a member) and the motives 
which impelled them to fight, writes: 

"Why did they volunteer? For what did they give 
their lives? . . . Surely, it was not for slavery they fought. 
The great majority of them had never owned a slave, 
and had little or no interest in the institution. My own 
father, for example, had freed his slaves long years before." 1 

This command was composed of representatives of the 
leading families in the city of Richmond, at that time 
the largest slaveholding city in the state. Here one would 
expect to find the slaveholding soldiers. 

1 Four Years Under Marse Robert, Stiles, p. 49. 



156 SLAVEHOLDERS AMONG THE LEADERS 

Dr. Hunter McGuire, the medical director of the Stone- 
wall Brigade, has left on record his estimate of the number 
of slaveholders in the ranks of that command — which, 
being drawn from all portions of the state, was more 
representative of the citizenship of Virginia, East and West: 

"The Stonewall Brigade of the Army of Northern 
Virginia," writes Dr. McGuire, "was a fighting organiza- 
tion. I knew every man in it, for I belonged to it for a 
long time; and I know that I am in proper bounds when 
I assert, that there was not one soldier in thirty who 
owned or ever expected to own a slave." 1 

But it is also urged that, while men without slaves 
filled the ranks of the Virginia regiments, yet slaveholders 
led these soldiers into battle as they had led the people 
into revolution. 

It is obviously impracticable to present the facts with 
reference to each one of the prominent leaders which 
Virginia gave to the armies of the Confederacy. By 
universal accord her five most notable generals were, 
Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, Joseph E. Johnston, 
A. P. Hill and J. E. B. Stuart — to whom may be added 
Fitzhugh Lee and Matthew F. Maury, as only less promi- 
nent but no less representative of her leading soldiers. 

In dealing with these men, and their relation to slavery, 
we pass from the domain of conjecture into the realm of 
fact. 

Robert E. Lee never owned a slave, except the few he 
inherited from his mother — all of whom he emancipated 
many years prior to the war. 2 

x The Confederate Cause and Conduct, in the War Between the 
States, McGuire and Christian, p. 22. 

2 See letter from his eldest son, General G. W. Custis Lee, to the 
Author, dated February 4, 1907, on file in Virginia Historical 
Society. 



SLAVEHOLDERS AMONG THE LEADERS 157 

"Stonewall" Jackson never owned but two slaves, a 
man and a woman, both of whom he purchased at their 
own solicitation. He immediately accorded to them the 
privilege of earning their freedom, by devoting the wages 
received for their services to reimburse him for the pur- 
chase money. This offer was accepted by the man, who, 
in due time, earned his freedom. The woman declined 
the offer, preferring to remain a servant in General Jack- 
son's family. 1 

Joseph E. Johnston never owned a slave and, like 
General Lee, regarded the institution with great disfavor. 2 

A. P. Hill never owned a slave, and regarded slavery as 
an evil, much to be deplored. 3 

J. E. B. Stuart inherited one slave from his father's 
estate; and, while stationed as a lieutenant in the United 
States Army at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, purchased 
another. Both of these he disposed of some years prior 
to the war — the first, because of her cruelty to one of his 
children, and the second, to a purchaser who undertook 
to return the slave to his former home in Kentucky. 4 

Fitzhugh Lee never owned a slave. 5 

Matthew F. Maury never owned but one slave, a woman 
who remained a servant and member of his family until 



x The Confederate Cause and Conduct in the War Between the 
States, McGuire and Christian, p. 22. 

2 See letter from his nephew, Dr. George Ben Johnston, of 
Richmond, Va., dated April 17, 1907, to the Author, on file in 
Virginia Historical Society. 

3 See letter from his son-in-law, James Macgill, dated April 20, 
1908, to the Author, on file in Virginia Historical Society. 

4 See letter from his widow, Mrs. Flora Stuart, to the Author, 
dated March 25, 1908, on file in Virginia Historical Society. 

5 See letter from his brother, Daniel M. Lee, to the Author, dated 
May 28, 1908, on file in Virginia Historical Society. 



158 SLAVEHOLDERS AMONG THE LEADERS 

her death, some years after the war. 1 As we have seen, 
he characterized the institution as " a curse." 2 

'See letter from his son, Colonel Richard L. Maury, to the 
Author, dated June 1, 1907, on file in Virginia Historical Society. 
2 See Life of Matthew F. Maury, Corbin, p. 131. 



XXIII 

Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties 

which Embarrassed Every Plan of 

Emancipation 

The problems and difficulties which beset emancipa- 
tion in Virginia may be summarized as follows : 

First: The legal rights of the slaveholders and their 
creditors; 

Second: The moral and physical well-being of the slaves; 
and 

Third : The political and social interests of the state. 

To these inherent difficulties should be superadded the 
lack of free discussion and the growth of bitterness and 
reactionary sentiments occasioned largely by partisan and 
ofttimes criminal instigations coming from beyond the 
state. 

It will not be questioned that of all men, except the 
slaves themselves, the slaveholders were most deeply 
interested in the subject of emancipation. They possessed 
a direct pecuniary interest in the slaves and were usually 
the owners of large tracts of land dependent, it was believed, 
for cultivation, upon their labor. Thus it was thought 
that emancipation without compensation involved not 
only the loss of their slaves, but a great depreciation in 
the value of their lands. In addition to these direct 
losses would come the burden of caring for the poor, the 
afflicted, and the criminal classes of the ex-slaves, not to 
mention the cost of educating the rising generation — the 

159 



160 LEGAL RIGHTS OF SLAVEHOLDERS 

major part of all of which would fall upon the communities 
where the ex-slaves lived, and thus upon the remnant of 
property left to their former owners. 

To the foregoing embarrassments must be added the 
rights of creditors. A great majority of the slaves in 
Virginia descended to their owners by the laws of inher- 
itance, just as the plantations of which they were virtually 
part. With the slaves and the lands, came the debts of 
the ancestors, or, in the progress of time, new debts were 
incurred. In all such instances the debts of creditors 
must be provided for before any change could be made in 
the status of slaves bound for their payment. All these 
considerations convinced fair-minded men that some 
substantial measure of compensation must be made the 
slaveholders before they could be expected to absolve 
their slaves from service. But from what source was 
this great fund to be gathered? Despite the widespread 
sentiment favorable to emancipation, neither state nor 
nation gave sign of willingness to assume the burden. 

But beyond the financial difficulties mentioned was the 
attitude of that class of slaveholders who cherished no 
desire for emancipation and resented every such suggestion 
as a wanton invasion of their safety and their rights. 
They were satisfied with the status quo; they neither 
desired change nor discussion of its supposed advantages. 
They met every proposal with a resolute insistence upon 
their legal rights under the constitutions, State and Federal, 
and manifested an intolerance of thought and speech 
with respect to the institution which filled the friends of 
moderation and progress with mournful appreciation of 
the hindrances which beset their path. 

How far a conscientious regard for the moral and physical 
well-being of the slaves entered into the considerations 



THE WELL-BEING OF THE SLAVES 161 

of the time as a deterrent cause against their emancipation, 
cannot be determined. Undoubtedly such sentiments ex- 
isted among many earnest men favorable thereto. 

From the mass of facts and medley of voices certain 
conclusions can be drawn. 

Thus it may be affirmed that the slaves in Virginia were 
better off as a result of their training and experience in 
servitude than they would have been had their ancestors 
never set foot upon her soil. It is equally true that theirs 
was but a partial development and that freedom was 
necessary to the complete man. As the time comes in the 
life of a child when the privileges and dangers of self- 
expression and self-control must supplant the restraints 
of the home and the school-room, so in the life of these 
children of larger growth, freedom with its awesome 
dangers and soul-inspiring possibilities was essential to any 
well-rounded and continuous advance. 

Again, freedom was a help in the development of those 
who had made a certain measure of progress in their 
moral, intellectual and physical being; yet for those who 
were not thus prepared, its untimely coming might prove 
the dawn of a darker day, unless accompanied by wise 
nurture and sympathetic guidance of the feet, trained 
only for the paths of dependence. 

Mr. Jefferson doubtless expressed the sentiments of a 
large class of thinkers when he said: "As far as I can 
judge from the experiments which have been made, to 
give liberty to, or rather to abandon, persons whose habits 
have been formed in slavery, is like abandoning children." 1 

Experience with respect to emancipations made prior to 
the Civil War strongly tended to confirm these views. 

^Writings of Jefferson, Ford, Vol. X, p. 66. 



162 CONDITION OF FREE NEGROES, 1830-1860 

The conditions, moral, intellectual and physical, of the 
free negroes of Virginia contrasted, as a rule, most un- 
favorably with that of their brethren still in bonds. 

The results ol emancipation where the slaves had been 
carried to free states, were, on the whole, not much more 
encouraging. 

Professor MacMaster, of the University of Pennsylvania, 
referring to the condition of the free negroes in those states 
at the time of the Missouri Compromise, writes : " In spite 
of their freedom they were a despised, proscribed, and 
poverty-stricken class." 1 

Mr. Clay, speaking December 17, 1829, said: 

" Of all the descriptions of our population and of either 
portion of the African race, the free people of color are by 
far, as a class, the most corrupt, depraved and abandoned. 
There are many honourable exceptions among them, and I 
take pleasure in bearing testimony to some I know. It is 
not so much their fault as the consequence of their anomal- 
ous condition." 2 

Dr. Leonard Bacon, in a sermon before his congregation 
in New Haven, Conn., July 4, 1830, said: 

" Who are the free people of color in the United States, 
and what are they? In this city there are from eight 
hundred to one thousand. Of these, a few families are 
honest, sober, industrious, pious and in many points of 
view, respectable But what are the remainder? Every 
one knows their condition to be a condition of deep 
and dreadful degradation, but few have formed any 
conception of the reality. The fact is, that as a class, 
they are branded with ignominy. . . . There are in this 
country three hundred thousand freedmen, who are free 
men only in name, degraded to the dust and forming 

^History of the United States, MacMaster, Vol. Ill, p. 558. 
2 The African Repository and Colonial Journal, Vol. VI, No. 1, 
p. 12. 



OUTLAY NECESSARY TO EMANCIPATION 163 

hardly anything else than a mass of pauperism and crime. m 

The biographers of William Lloyd Garrison have recorded 
that at the North, prior to the Civil War: 

"The free colored people were looked upon as an 
inferior caste to whom their liberty was a curse, and their 
lot worse than that of the slaves, with this difference, that 
while the latter were to be kept in bondage ' for their own 
good' it would have been very wicked to enslave the 
former for their good." 2 

We need not pause to consider the causes which reduced 
the free negroes of the Northern States to the conditions 
here described. That the free negroes of Virginia should 
have made little or no progress is easily accounted for by 
the abnormal conditions amid which they lived. There 
was confessedly scant chance for free negroes in com- 
munities densely populated with negro slaves. Many of 
the friends of emancipation, however, observing this same 
phenomenon in both slave and free states, came to the 
conclusion that freedom under existing conditions was hurt- 
ful rather than helpful. Others concluded that it was not 
freedom, but the lack of freedom with all its normal privi- 
leges, which had fettered the feet of these newly manumitted 
slaves. Let the state pay the owners and emancipate the 
whole body of slaves; let education and training for freedom 
go hand in hand with opportunity for achieving, and then 
emancipation would be justified of her children. For 
this immense outlay Virginia was confessedly not ready, 
and so the earnest believer in emancipation looked to 
colonization as the only door through which the slave might 
enter upon liberty with a man's chance for progress and 
self-respecting independence. 

^Liberia Bulletin, No. 15, p. 7. 

2 WiUiam Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. I, pp. 253-254. 



XXIV 

Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties 

which Embarrassed Every Plan of 

Emancipation (Continued) 

Beyond all the difficulties mentioned, there loomed the 
more portentous problem of the effect upon the state's 
political and social well-being of the introduction into her 
free population of a great company of negroes, whether as 
citizens or suffragists, or mere tenants at the will of their 
white brethren. What should be the outcome of such an 
unparalleled experiment as universal emancipation under 
the conditions existing in Virginia? The results of eman- 
cipation in the free states furnished no assurance because 
there the number of negroes was so small as to constitute 
a negligible quantity. What were the voices of history 
which came from over-sea? In Spain, after centuries of 
conflict, the whites had finally driven the remnant of the 
Moors literally into the Mediterranean. In San Domingo, 
after the carnival of blood had spent its force, the blacks 
had expelled all the surviving whites from the island. 

"It is futile," said Mr. Jefferson, "to hope to retain 
and incorporate the blacks into the state. Deep-rooted 
prejudices of the whites, ten thousand recollections of the 
blacks, of injuries sustained, new provocations, the real 
distinction Nature has made, and many other circum- 
stances will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions 
which will probably never end but in the extermination of 
one or the other race." 1 

1 History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 132. 
164 



STATUS OF THE FREE NEGRO IN THE STATE 165 

But casting aside these tragic warnings, the question of 
what would be the result of the great experiment, stood 
unanswered. What place in the life of the commonwealth 
were these people to fill? Should they be trained for the 
obligations of freedom and then denied its privileges? 
Should they be accorded the right of suffrage? If not, how 
would its denial comport with the genius of our institutions 
and the aspirations of our people? If entrusted with the 
suffrage how was the well-being of communities to be 
assured where, having the majority, they would become 
political masters? Had negroes ever, in the world's his- 
tory, ruled in peace and order a community largely popu- 
lated by whites? Was the race to be kept in a state of 
quasi-dependence — beholden for their social and economic 
privileges to the very people with whom they must come in 
competition? What provision for the pauperism, the 
vagrancy, the lunacy and the crime which would certainly 
follow the removal of the restraints of slavery? What 
measure and character of education for the young and by 
whom provided? These and many more like them were 
the questions, which, from the close of the Revolution, had 
confronted the people of Virginia. What should be the 
relations, political and social, of the two races after eman- 
cipation? Speaking in September, 1850, in Congress, on the 
Wilmot Proviso, Gov. James McDowell, of Virginia, said: 

"Physical amalgamation? . . . ruinous, if it were pos- 
sible. . . . Political and civil amalgamation just as im- 
possible. . . . Emancipation with rights of residence and 
property, but exclusion from social, civil and political 
equality, would conduce, sooner or later, to a war of 
colors." 1 

Congressional Globe, 31st Congress. 1st Session. App. 1678. 



166 VIEWS OF RIVES AND De TOCQUEVILLE 

Speaking ten years later in the Peace Conference, at 
Washington, Ex-Senator William C. Rives, of Virginia, 
said : " It has occupied the attention of the wisest men of 
our time. ... In fact, it is not a question of slavery at all. 
It is a question of race." 1 

These two great Virginians were strong anti-slavery men, 
yet they stood appalled before the problems of immediate 
emancipation without deportation or colonization. That 
their views were not the product of their environment, 
will appear from expressions of eminent men not so 
situated. 

M. de Tocqueville, whose work, Democracy in America, 
is the subject of the widest appreciation, has given to the 
world in his notable book, published in 1838, his conclu- 
sions with respect to this subject. "The most formidable 
of all the ills," he writes, " which threaten the future exist- 
ence of the Union, arises from the presence of a black 
population upon its territory." 2 

Again he writes : " I do not imagine that the white and 
black races will ever live in any country upon an equal 
footing. But I believe the difficulty to be still greater in 
the United States than elsewhere." 3 

In conclusion, he says: 

"When I contemplate the condition of the South I can 
only discover the alternative which may be adopted by the 
white inhabitants of those states, namely, either to eman- 
cipate the negroes and to intermingle with them ; or, remain- 
ing isolated from them, to keep them in a state of slavery 
as long as possible. All intermediate measures seem to me 
likely to terminate, and that shortly, in the most horrible of 

^Proceedings of Peace Convention, Crittenden, p. 139. 
2 Democracy in America, de Tocqueville, Vol. II, p. 214. 
'Idem, p. 238. 



VIEWS OF DOUGLAS AND SHERMAN 167 

civil wars, and perhaps in the extirpation of one or the other 
of the two races." 1 

Stephen A. Douglas, speaking at Ottawa, 111., August 
21st, 1858, said: 

"For one I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and 
every form. I believe this Government was made by white 
men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity for- 
ever; and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white 
men, — men of European birth and descent, instead of 
conferring it upon negroes, Indians and other inferior 
races." 2 

General William T. Sherman, writing in July, 1860, 
said: 

" All the Congresses on earth can't make the negro any- 
thing else than what he is; he must be subject to the white 
man, or he must amalgamate or be destroyed. Two such 
races cannot live in harmony, save as master and slave. 
Mexico shows the result of general equality and amalgama- 
tion, and the Indians give a fair illustration of the fate of 
negroes if they are released from the control of the whites." 3 

William H. Seward, speaking at Detroit, Michigan, 
September 4th, 1860, said: 

"The great fact is now fully realized that the African 
race here is a foreign and feeble element, like the Indians, 
incapable of assimilation, . . . and that it is a pitiful 
exotic, unwisely and unnecessarily transplanted into our 
fields, and which it is unprofitable to cultivate at the cost 
of the desolation of the native vineyard." 4 

^Democracy in America, de Tocqueville, Vol. II, p. 245. 
2 The Negro Problem, Abraham Lincoln's Solution, Pickett, p. 446. 
^General Sherman's Letters Home, Howe, Scribner's Magazine, 
April, 1909, p. 400. 

*The Negro Problem, Abraham Lincoln's Solution, Pickett, p. 449. 



168 VIEWS OF LINCOLN 

Let us turn to the more hopeful and yet halting con- 
clusions of Abraham Lincoln. In his speech at Quincy, 
Illinois, October 15th, 1858, in the Lincoln-Douglas 
Debate, he said: 

"I have no purpose to introduce political and social 
equality between the white and black races. There is a 
physical difference between the two which, in my judg- 
ment, would probably forever forbid their living together 
upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it 
becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, 
as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which 
I belong having the superior position." 1 

In the same debate at Charleston, 111., September 18th, 
1858, he had said: 

" I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in 
favor of bringing about, in any way, the social and political 
equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor 
ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of 
negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to inter- 
marry with white people; and I will say in addition to 
this that there is a physical difference between the white 
and black races which I believe will forever forbid the 
two races living together on terms of social and political 
equality." 2 

How unsatisfactory would be the status of the two 
races in a state where such conditions obtained, Mr. 
Lincoln must have appreciated, and so, as we have seen, he 
turned to the colonization of the negroes as the real solution 
of the problem. 

1 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H.. 
Vol. I, p. 458. 
2 Idem, p. 457. 



CONDITION OF FREE NEGROES AT THE NORTH 169 

Throughout the North as well as in Virginia there were 
thoughtful men who knew that here was the difficulty. 
Slavery might be abolished, but the presence of two non- 
assimilable races, separated by centuries in their stages 
of development, endeavoring to live in peace under a 
Republican form of government — these conditions pre- 
sented the problem which would tax to the utmost their 
resourcefulness and patience. 

How strong was the sense of danger among the people 
of the free states, which would result from such condi- 
tions, may be read in the provisions of their constitutions 
and laws. 

Probably in New England the laws were more favorable 
to free negroes than in any other part of the North; but, 
even there, conditions were far from normal, and certainly 
not such as to encourage the immigration of the free blacks 
from Maryland and Virginia — where they were most 
numerous. 

In 1833, the Legislature of Connecticut, endeavoring to 
prevent the establishment of schools in that state for non- 
resident negroes, enacted a law prohibiting such schools, 
except with the consent " of a majority of the civil authority 
and also of the selectmen of the town in which such school, 
&C.," 1 is to be located. The preamble of this act justifies 
its passage by declaring that the establishment of such 
schools "would tend to the great increase of the colored 
population of the state, and thereby to the injury of the 
people, &c." The negro populations of Vermont and 
New Hampshire had actually decreased in the half century 
between 1810 and 1860, while that of Massachusetts had 
increased less than three thousand. 

William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. I, p. 321. 



170 LAWS AGAINST FREE NEGROES 

The biographers of William Lloyd Garrison record the 
fact that there existed a — 

" Spirit which everywhere at the North, either by statute 
or custom, denied to a dark skin, civil, social and educa- 
tional equality, — which in Boston forbade any merchant 
or respectable mechanic to take a colored apprentice; 
kept the colored people out of most public conveyances; 
and permitted any common carrier by land or sea, on the 
objections of a white passenger, to violate his contract 
with 'a nigger' however cultivated or refined." 1 

The states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania 
had by statutes deprived free negroes of many of the 
privileges enjoyed in the period immediately succeeding 
the Revolution. Thus, New Jersey in 1807, and Pennsyl- 
vania in 1838, deprived them of the right of suffrage, and 
New York in 1821 required of them as a prerequisite to 
voting a much higher property qualification than was 
required of the white citizens. 2 Professor A. B. Hart 
declares: "These exclusions branded the negroes as of a 
different caste, even in the North, and it was backed up by 
other unfriendly legislation." 3 

But it was chiefly in those free states on the same lines 
of latitude as Virginia and Maryland, and in which the 
free negroes would therefore be most liable to settle, that 
the laws obstructing or forbidding their immigration were 
most pronounced. 

Early in the century Ohio enacted laws inhibiting 
negroes from settling in that state, unless they produced 
certificates of their freedom, from a Court of Record, and 
executed bonds, with approved security, not to become 

William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. I, p. 253. 
^Slavery and Abolition, Hart, p. 83. 
3 Jdem, p. 83. 



EXCLUDED FROM VARIOUS STATES 171 

charges upon the counties in which they settled. They 
were not permitted to give evidence in court in any cause 
where a white man was party to the controversy or prosecu- 
tion, nor could they send their children to the public 
schools. About the middle of the century many of these 
laws were repealed, but, by the constitution adopted as 
late as 1851, they were denied the right to vote, and were 
excluded from the militia. 1 

Indiana at first permitted free negroes to settle in the 
state, provided they gave bonds, with approved security, 
not to become charges upon the counties where they lived; 
but, in 1851, a new constitution was adopted which 
specifically provided (Article XIII, Section 1) that "no 
negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the state after 
the adoption of this constitution." 2 

This clause in the constitution was adopted by over 
ninety thousand majority of the popular vote. 3 

In Illinois, following a series of laws of like import, an 
act was passed in 1853, "to prevent the immigration of 
free negroes into this state," the third section of which 
declared it a misdemeanor for a negro or mulatto, bond 
or free, to come into the state with the intention of residing. 4 
Section four of this act provided that any negro coming 
into the state in violation of the act should be fined and sold 
for a time to pay the fine and cost. 

In 1862, in the Constitutional Convention then in 
session, the provisions of this statute were engrafted upon 
the organic law of the state. Article XVIII provided : 

Wistory of Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. II, pp. 111-119. 
2 History of Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. II, pp. 119-122. 
3 Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Wilson, Vol. II, 
p. 185. 

*History of Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. II, p. 123. 



172 NORTHERN DREAD OF FREE NEGROES 

Section 1. "No negro or mulatto shall immigrate or 
settle in this state after the adoption of the constitution." 

This article of the constitution was submitted to the 
popular vote separately from the body of the constitution, 
and, though the latter was rejected by over 16,000 majority, 
the former was made a part of the organic law of Illinois 
by a majority of 100,590. This vote was taken in August, 
1862, and thus, barely a month before Mr. Lincoln's first 
Proclamation of Emancipation, the people of his own 
state, by a vote approaching unanimity, placed in their 
constitution this clause preventing free negroes from 
coming into their commonwealth. 1 

By the constitution of Oregon, adopted on November 
9th, 1857, it was provided that: 

" No free negro or mulatto, not residing in this state at 
the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come, 
reside or be within this state . . . and the legislative 
assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal 
by public officers of all such negroes and mulattoes, and 
for their effectual exclusion from the state, and for the 
punishment of persons who shall bring them into the 
state or employ or harbor them." 2 

This provision of the constitution was adopted by a 
popular vote of 8040 to 10S1 against it. 

If the people of the North thus regarded their few 
negroes as a dangerous and perplexing element, how much 
more should the people of Virginia hesitate in face of the 
conditions and problems which confronted them? If 
Indiana and Illinois, with populations of over three million 

Illinois Convention Journal, 1862, p. 1098. 

2 The Organic and Other General Laws of Oregon, 1843-72, pp. 
97-98. 



LINCOLN'S ESTIMATE OF THE DANGER 173 

whites and less than twenty thousand blacks, felt con- 
strained to deny free negroes the right to enter their states, 
how much more should their sister, Virginia, with only 
one million whites and nearly a half million black slaves, 
fear to add to her already large free negro population? 

This sense of danger to their political and social well- 
being arising from the threatened presence of negroes in 
large numbers was felt by the whites of the free states 
even after two years of civil war had wrought its changes 
in sentiment, and Mr. Lincoln's first Proclamation of Eman- 
cipation had been given to the world. In his message 
to Congress in December, 1862, the President, in urging 
his plan for national aid to facilitate emancipation and 
deportation, endeavored to meet and allay these fears. 
He said: 

" But it is dreaded that the freed people will swarm forth 
and cover the whole land. Are they not already in the 
land? Will liberation make them more numerous? 
Equally distributed among the whites of the whole country, 
and there would be but one colored to seven whites. Could 
the one in any way disturb the seven? . . . 

"But why should emancipation South send the free 
people North? People of any color seldom run unless 
there be something to run from. Heretofore colored 
people to some extent have fled North from bondage and 
now perhaps from both bondage and destitution. But if 
gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted they 
will have neither to flee from. . . . And in any event 
cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive 
them?" 1 

These appealing words of Mr. Lincoln show that in the 
very hour when the inspiring vision of emancipation was 
being held up before the people of the free states, they 

^Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, pp. 140-141. 



174 LINCOLN'S ESTIMATE OF THE DANGER 

were balancing the satisfaction of its achievement with the 
dangers to their peace which might follow any substantial 
increase in their negro population. 

"Cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive 
them ? ' ' were the reassuring words of Mr. Lincoln. Virginia 
had no such alternative. 



XXV 

Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties 
which Embarrassed Every Plan of Emanci- 
pation (Concluded) 

" Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as 
when they discuss it freely." In these words Lord Mac- 
aulay fixes free discussion as a prime requisite to the right 
solution of problems, however difficult. It was one of the 
baneful features of slavery and the racial problems attend- 
ing it that in the period just antedating the Civil War 
tolerant discussion was almost banished from the arena. 
As a rule, men of moderate views and sane counsels were 
driven to the rear, while the Fanatics of the North and the 
Fire-eaters of the South held the centre of the stage. Vir- 
ginia was not wholly exempt from these conditions which 
in her case had their origin and growth in causes arising 
both within and beyond her borders. 

As we have seen, slavery in Virginia existed in certain 
well-defined localities and was confined in ownership to a 
small minority of her people. Thus the divergence of 
interests between the two classes of her white population 
assumed a sectional character which was, in turn, intensified 
by reason of an archaic arrangement with respect to repre- 
sentation in her General Assembly. As heretofore ex- 
plained, the representatives in her Legislature were appor- 
tioned among the various cities and counties of the com- 
monwealth not on the basis of their respective white popu- 
lations, but upon what was known as the "mixed basis" — 

175 



176 LACK OF FREE DISCUSSION IN STATE 

that is — the quantum of property was taken into account 
along with the number of white inhabitants. Slaves were 
assessed and taxed as property and so the white people in 
the slave-owning sections possessed a representative power 
in the State Legislature as against their brethren in the 
non-slave-owning sections far beyond that to which their 
numbers entitled them. Against this provision of Virginia's 
constitution the whites of the growing western section, with 
some assistance from the east, waged perpetual war. In 
this way slavery in Virginia became involved in a con- 
troversy the heat and conflicts of which served to intensify 
the feeling with respect to its continuance or abolition. 
In like manner this controversy augmented the power of 
the friends of slavery by rallying to their ranks the con- 
servative opponents of simple manhood suffrage, the 
property interests and all those who, like John Randolph 
of Roanoke, looked, as of old, to the East for light and 
leading. It was not until the Convention of 1850 that this 
provision of Virginia's constitution was amended, but as 
the change was not to be fully effective until 1865 the 
results of this augmentation of power to the people of the 
white sections were never made manifest in her laws. 

"Slavery is a cancer in your face," declared that master 
of epigram, John Randolph of Roanoke. The world saw 
it. The victim of the disease knew it was there. Between 
the pain of its presence and the dread lest the surgeon's 
knife might not work a cure, the patient halted and hesi- 
tated and, by manifold methods, sought to mitigate its 
pain or banish the thought of its existence. Thus silence 
for to-day and hope for to-morrow was his fatuous policy. 

Slavery was at war with the ideals upon which Virginians 
had founded their commonwealth. It was a burden upon 
her advance along every line of normal achievement. It was 



CAUSES IN THE STATE, WHICH HINDERED 177 

repugnant to the sensibilities of thousands of her most 
devoted sons and yet, despairing of any present remedy, 
they sternly deprecated discussion as a disloyal parading 
before the world of this skeleton in her closet. 

Slavery made its home among the great plantations 
spreading their broad acres far from the centres of popu- 
lation, their owners living distant one from the other. It 
required, therefore, some more persuasive force than bolts 
and bars, to protect these isolated whites from the fury of 
the blacks if ever roused to a maddened discontent with 
their lot, and a consciousness of their power. Thus the 
daily precepts of slavery, — obedience, submission and 
reverence for the white man, — must not be dissipated by 
public discussions in which the rightfulness of slavery was 
questioned and the glories of freedom held up before the 
eyes of the wondering blacks. San Domingo sent its 
warnings, the horrors of the Nat Turner Insurrection were 
still fresh in the minds of men, and so the imperilled slave- 
holders denounced as the enemies of their race white men 
who indulged in academic discussions as to the advantages 
of emancipation. 

The foregoing were some of the causes arising within the 
state which served to discourage public discussions with 
respect to the abolition of slavery, and to invest with 
unnatural heat and bitterness the sentiments of those who 
nevertheless essayed the task. 

From beyond came movements and voices even more 
destructive of the spirit of free discussion and which lent 
to the reactionary elements in the state an advantage 
which they could never have acquired except for this out- 
side interference. 

As far back as 1835 John Quincy Adams noted in his 
diary: 



178 CAUSES FROM WITHOUT, WHICH HINDERED 

" Anti-slavery associations are formed in this country 
and in England and they are already co-operating in con- 
certed agency together. They have raisecTfunds to sup- 
port and circulate inflammatory newspapers and pamphlets 
gratuitously, and they send multitudes of them into the 
Southern country into the midst of swarms of slaves." 1 

In the same year there assembled in Faneuil Hall what 
the biographers of William Lloyd Garrison called "the 
social, political, religious and intellectual elite of Boston," 
who, under the leadership of Theodore Lyman, Jr., Abbott 
Lawrence, Peleg Sprague, and Harrison Gray Otis adopted 
resolutions denouncing the Northern Abolitionists for seek- 
ing by their inflammatory publications "to scatter among 
our Southern brethren fire-brands, arrows, and death," 
and pledging the meeting to support all constitutional laws 
for the suppression of all publications, "the natural and 
direct tendency of which is to incite the slaves of the South 
to revolt." 2 

Margaret Mercer, of Maryland, whose devotion to the 
cause of negro emancipation was well attested by her act in 
manumitting her own slaves, as well as in her life of service 
devoted largely to their interests, writing to Gerrit Smith, 
laments the incendiary appeals of William Lloyd Garrison 
and the direful forebodings which they aroused among the 
Southern people especially in the imaginations of the 
women. She says: 

"For while the well-disposed and faithful servants of 
kind masters will suffer and die with the whites in a general 
insurrection, the lawless and vicious will have in their 
power to massacre men, women and children in their sleep. 

1 Adams's Diary, August 11, 1835. Quoted in Life of William 
Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. I, p. 487. 

2 William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. I, p. 495. 



VIEWS OF ADAMS 179 

This is my apology for feeling and expressing the deepest 
indignation against the man who dares to throw the fire- 
brand into the powder magazine while all are asleep and 
stands himself at a distance to see the mangled victims of 
his barbarous fury. I pray you, dear sir, in the strength 
of your benevolence to conceive the state of families living 
remote from assistance in the country. Suppose, as I have 
often witnessed, an alarm of insurrection; think of the 
mother of a family startled from her sleep by some unusual 
noise and seized with a horrid apprehension of the scene 
which may await her in a few moments." » 

Rev. Nehemiah Adams, of Boston, who visited Vir- 
ginia and the South in 1854, published the results of his 
observations, from which we take the following extracts. 

After describing the activities of the Northern Anti- 
slavery Societies in scattering among the Southern negroes 
publications and pictures tending to stimulate slave insur- 
rections and to inculcate ideas of racial equality, Dr. 
Adams writes : 

"When these amalgamation pictures were discovered, 
husbands and fathers at the South felt that whatever might 
be true of slavery as a system, self-defense, the protection 
of their households against servile insurrection, was their 
first duty. Who can wonder that they broke into the 
post-office and seized and burned abolition papers; indeed 
no excesses are surprising in view of the perils to which they 
saw themselves exposed." 2 

Again he writes : " They seem to be living in a state of 
self-defense, of self-preservation against the North." 3 

"As Northern zeal has promulgated bolder sentiments 

1 Memoir of Margaret Mercer, Morris, p. 126. 
2 A South Side View of Slavery, Adams, p. 108. 
s Idem, p. 108. 



180 VIEWS OF LUNT 

with regard to the right and duty of slaves to steal, burn, 
and kill, in effecting their liberty, the South has intrenched 
itself by more vigorous laws and customs. . . . Nothing 
forces itself more constantly upon the thoughts of a North- 
erner at the South who looks into the history and present 
state of slavery, than the vast injury which has resulted 
from Northern interference." 1 

In his message to Congress, December, 1860, Pres- 
ident Buchanan writes: 

"The incessant and violent agitation of the slavery 
question through the North for the last quarter of a cen- 
tury has at last produced its malign influence on the slaves 
and inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence 
a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar. 
The feeling of peace at home has given place to appre- 
hension of servile insurrection. Many a matron through- 
out the South retires at night in dread of what may befall 
herself and children before the morning." 

Mr. George Lunt, of Boston, in his work, The Origin of 
the Late War, writes : 

" It thus appears that an active and alarming system of 
aggression against the South was in operation at the North 
thirty years ago, threatening to excite servile insurrection, 
to imperil union, to stir up civil war. This fact rests upon 
testimony which cannot but be considered impartial and 
conclusive." 2 

Again the same author, referring to the attempt of John 
Brown and his associates, writes: 

" Nothing was here wanting to insure a more widespread 
scene of horror and desolation than the world perhaps had 
ever before witnessed, except a totally different relation 

'Idem, p. 110. 

2 The Origin of the Late War, Lunt, p. 104. 



VIEWS OF BURGESS 181 

between the masters and their servants in the South than 
that falsely imagined by the conspirators and by those in 
sympathy with them either before or after the fact." 1 

Professor John W. Burgess, of Columbia University, in 
his work, The Civil War and the Constitution, has por- 
trayed the disastrous effects upon the sentiment in favor 
of emancipation in various parts of the South, occasioned 
by the virulence of these agitators and above all by the 
attempt of John Brown and his followers to precipitate 
servile insurrection. 

"If the whole thing," writes Professor Burgess, "both as 
to time, methods, and results, had been planned by his 
Satanic Majesty himself, it could not have succeeded better 
in setting the sound conservative movements of the age at 
naught, and in creating a state of feeling which offered the 
most capital opportunities for the triumph of political in- 
sincerity, radicalism and rascality over their opposites. 
No man who is acquainted with the change of feeling 
which occurred in the South between the 16th of October 
1859 and the 16th day of November of the same year can 
regard the Harper's Ferry villainy as any other than one of 
the chiefest crimes of our history. It established and re- 
established the control of the great radical slaveholders 
over the non-slaveholders, — the little slaveholders, and the 
more liberal of the large slaveholders, ■ which had already 
begun to be loosened." 2 

Professor Burgess then proceeds to show the still more 
disastrous effects upon conservative sentiment in Virginia 
and the South which resulted from the demonstrations at 
the North on the day of John Brown's execution. 

"Brown and his band," says Professor Burgess, "had 

'Idem, p. 329. 

2 The Civil War and the Constitution, Burgess, Vol. I, p. 35. 



182 VIEWS OF BURGESS 

murdered five men and wounded some eight or ten more in 
their criminal movement at Harper's Ferry. . . . Add to 
this the consideration that Brown certainly intended the 
wholesale massacre of the whites by the blacks in case that 
should be found necessary to effect his purposes and it was 
certainly natural that the tolling of the church bells, the 
holding of prayer-meetings for the soul of John Brown, the 
draping of houses, the half-masting of flags, &c, in many 
parts of the North should appear to the people of the South 
to be evidences of a wickedness which knew no bounds 
and which was bent upon the destruction of the South by 
any means necessary to accomplish the result. . . . Es- 
pecially did terror and bitterness take possession of the 
hearts of the women of the South, who saw in slave insur- 
rection not only destruction and death, but that which to 
feminine virtue is a thousand times worse than the most 
terrible death. 

"From the Harper's Ferry outrage onward the con- 
viction grew among all classes that the white men of the 
South must stand together and must harmonize all internal 
differences in the presence of the mortal peril with which 
as a race they believed themselves threatened. Sound 
development in thought and feeling was arrested, the 
follies and hatreds born of fear and resentment now as- 
sumed the places born of common sense and common 
kindliness." 1 

But, despite conflicts within and assaults from without, 
it must not be concluded that the people of Virginia had 
entirely abandoned the right of free discussion in regard 
to slavery, nor forfeited their well-earned reputation for 
conservatism and self-poise. There were still, as we have 
seen, many of her foremost men, who were frank to deplore 
the existence of the institution and who had never sur- 
rendered the faith of their fathers, that the day of abolition 
would surely dawn. Neither did the outrage at Harper's 

l The Civil War and the Constitution, Burgess, Vol. I, pp. 42-44. 



VIRGINIA'S POSITION IN ELECTION OF 1860 183 

Ferry with all its sinister circumstances, nor the triumph 
of sectionalism in the National elections of I860, drive the 
state from its position of sanity and conservatism. Virginia 
was one of three commonwealths in that momentous elec- 
tion to cast her electoral vote for the Union candidates, 
Bell and Everett, standing on the simple platform — the 
preservation of the Union, the supremacy of the constitu- 
tion and the enforcement of the laws. 

The foregoing recitals will serve to present the almost 
insuperable difficulties with which emancipation in Virginia 
was invested during the period just antedating the Civil 
War. That her people took counsel of their fears, rather 
than their hopes, may be admitted. But for this attitude 
who shall arraign them? 

Abraham Lincoln, speaking at Peoria, 111., October 
16th, 1854, said: 

"When Southern people tell us that they are no more 
responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowl- 
edge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists 
and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satis- 
factory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. 
I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should 
not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were 
given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing 
institution. My first impulse would be to free all the 
slaves, and send them to Liberia — their native land. But 
a moment's reflection would convince me that whatever 
of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this in 
the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they 
were all landed there in a day they would all perish in the 
next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and 
surplus money enough in the world to carry them there 
in many times ten days. What then? Free them all 
and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite 
certain that this betters their condition? I think I would 



184 LINCOLN'S ESTIMATE OF THE DIFFICULTIES 

not hold one in slavery at any rate; yet the point is not 
clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What 
next? Free them and make them politically and socially 
our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and 
if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass 
of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords 
with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question, 
if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling whether 
well or ill founded cannot be safely disregarded. We 
cannot then make them equals. It does seem to me that 
systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but 
for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge 
our brethren of the South." 1 

" If all earthly power were given me, I should not know 
what to do as to the existing institution!" Such was the 
frank avowal of Mr. Lincoln. 

Nearly a half century later, Charles Francis Adams, the 
grandson of the " Old Man Eloquent," and himself a veteran 
of the Union Army, wrote : 

"The existence of an uneradicable and insurmountable 
race difference is indisputable. The white man and the 
black man cannot flourish together, the latter being con- 
siderable in number, under the same system of government. 
. . . The negro squats at our hearthstone. We can 
neither assimilate nor expel him." 2 

We need not yield completely to Mr. Lincoln's per- 
plexity, nor to Mr. Adams's despair in acknowledging the 
gravity of the situation which confronted the people of 
Virginia and the almost insuperable difficulties which 
attended its right solution. 

^-Lincoln-Douglass Debates, p. 74. See also Abraham Lincoln, 
Letters, Speeches and State Papers, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 187. 
2 Century Magazine, March, 1906, p. 106. 



XXVI 

The Status of the Controversy Regarding 

Slavery at the Time Virginia Seceded 

from the Union 

In considering the status of the controversy with 
respect to slavery just prior to the Civil War, and whether 
Virginia in seceding was actuated by a desire to extend 
or perpetuate the institution, it will assist to a clearer 
understanding if we present in detail the several phases 
over which conflicts had arisen, and the parties to the same. 

The right and obligation of the Federal Government to 
prevent, by legislation, slaveholders from emigrating into 
the territories with their slaves; the duty of the Federal 
Government to provide through its officials for the capture 
and return to their owners of fugitive slaves; and the 
existence or abolition of slavery in the Southern States — 
these constituted the three principal subjects of discussion 
and points of conflict. 

Coupled with this three-fold aspect of the problem, 
Virginia was confronted by four factors, more or less 
potential in their relation to the subject — the Federal 
Government, the Republican Party, certain of the Northern 
States, and the Abolitionists. 

With respect to the Federal Government, neither Vir- 
ginia nor her slaveholders could lodge any complaint. 

The compromise measures of 1850 had accorded slave- 
holders the right to carry their slaves into the territories 
of Utah and New Mexico (which embraced the present 

185 



186 ATTITUDE OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 

states of Nevada, Utah, a portion of Colorado, and the 
present territories of Arizona and New Mexico); while 
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, enacted in 1854, repealed the 
restrictions imposed by the Missouri Compromise. 

Independent of these measures the Supreme Court of 
the United States had, in 1857, in the Dred Scott case, 
decided that slaveholders possessed the right under the 
constitution, to carry their slaves into the territories, and 
that Congress could not deprive them of it. In like 
manner, the Federal Government had enacted a fugitive 
slave law with most efficient provisions for its enforcement 
by Federal officials, and, finally, the continued existence 
of slavery in Virginia found a sure defense from illegal 
assaults in the Federal Constitution and the power and 
obligation of the National Government to maintain its 
provisions. 

With respect to the attitude of the Republican Party, 
the situation was not so simple. The Republican Party 
was organized in 1854 to maintain the tenet that Congress 
had the right, as it was its duty, to exclude slave owners 
with their slaves from the territories. The Supreme 
Court of the United States three years later decided that 
Congress possessed no such power, yet in its platform 
of 1860 the Republican Party reasserted its position and 
hence advanced the more portentous claim that Congress 
had a right to legislate upon the subject in disregard of 
the mandates of the highest court of the Republic. It 
must also be borne in mind that the Republican Party 
was sectional in its origin, membership and spirit. Even 
its National conventions were composed of representatives 
gathered practically from only one of the two great divisions 
of the Union. Its nominees for President and Vice- 
President in 1856 and 1860 were both taken from the same 



SLAVEHOLDERS' RIGHTS IN TERRITORIES 187 

section. Electoral tickets bearing the names of its candi- 
dates were presented for the suffrages of the people only 
in the Northern and Border States; and, finally, by electoral 
votes coming exclusively from the North, its candidates 
were elected, though the majority in favor of their op- 
ponents aggregated nearly a million of the popular suffrage. 
These conditions may well have aroused the conviction 
that the rights and interests of Virginia and the South 
would receive scant recognition at the hands of the in- 
coming administration, yet the fact remains that before 
the date of Virginia's secession, the Republican Party 
had, by legislative enactments and official pledges, given 
proof of its purpose to protect slaveholders in every right 
previously established by the laws of Congress and the 
decisions of the Federal Courts. 

It is difficult at this distance from the event to appreciate 
how the question of the right of slaveholders to introduce 
slaves into the territories could have been the subject of 
such profound and peace-destroying controversy. That 
few slaves would ever be carried into the territories was 
a conclusion easily deducible from the character of slave 
labor, and the climatic and soil conditions of most of the 
Western prairies — especially after Southern California, 
which would have furnished them a congenial home, had 
been admitted into the Union as part of a free state. 

In like manner while we may appreciate the position of 
slaveholders who insisted upon their constitutional right 
to carry slaves into the territories, though they might 
never expect to exercise the privilege, yet it is difficult to 
realize the reasonableness of objection when coming from 
friends of emancipation not themselves citizens of the 
locality which was thus to be burdened. The problem of 
emancipation was largely a question of the relative numbers 



188 EFFECTS OF DISPERSING SLAVES 

of whites and blacks in any given state. With few blacks 
and many whites, there was no problem worthy of the 
name. With many blacks and few whites, the problem 
assumed its maximum of difficulty and danger. Every 
slave, therefore, who went from the congested slave centres 
of the South to the Western prairies not only ameliorated 
his own condition and enhanced his hopes of emancipa- 
tion, but, in like manner, augmented the chances of im- 
provement and ultimate freedom to those he left behind. 
Mr. Jefferson had, as far back as 1820, crystallized the 
thought in terms so clear and reasonable that it seems 
difficult to controvert. 

"Of one thing I am certain," wrote Mr. Jefferson, "that 
as the passage of slaves from one state to another would 
not make a slave of a single human being who would not 
be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface 
would make them individually happier and proportion- 
ately facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation by 
dividing the burden upon a greater number of coadjutors." 1 

The force of these observations will still further appear 
when we recall that slavery might be abolished upon the 
adoption by a territory of its constitution preliminary to 
statehood, or the new state might at any time in the 
future so decree — a result most probable because of the 
small number of slaves and the ever increasing white 
population within its borders. 

Mr. Seward in a speech before the United States Senate, 
in the winter of 1861, pointed out that in the decade during 
which the territories of Utah and New Mexico had been 
open to slavery, only twenty-four slaves had been carried 
into that vast dominion. 2 

Writings of Jefferson, Ford, Vol. VII, p. 159. 
2 Life of W. H. Seward, Lathrop, p. 220. 



'CONGRESS ORGANIZES TERRITORIES 189 

"The whole controversy," says Mr. Blaine, "over the 
territories, as remarked by a witty representative from 
the South, related to an imaginary negro in an impossible 
place." 1 

But despite these considerations, an acrimonious con- 
troversy had continued with growing bitterness for years. 
The Republican Party had at length been organized to 
maintain the tenet that Congress could and must exclude 
slaves from the territories; and, finally, its candidates for 
President and Vice-President had been elected to office. 
By the withdrawal from Congress of the Senators and 
Representatives from the Cotton States, the party found 
itself in January, 1861, controlling both branches of the 
National Legislature. Despite, however, the history and 
platform of the party, statutes were passed organizing 
the territories of Colorado, Dakota and Nevada, without 
any provision prohibiting slavery therein. Thus months 
before the date of Virginia's secession, the Republican 
Party gave this unequivocal assurance of its purpose to 
accord slaveholders the right to carry slaves into the 
territories. 

The Hon. James G. Blaine, writing twenty-five years 
after the happening, thus characterizes the action of his 
party: 

"When the Missouri Compromise was repealed, and the 
territories of the United States north of the line 35 degrees, 
30 minutes were left without slavery inhibition or restriction, 
the agitation began which ended in the overthrow of the 
Democratic Party and the election of Mr. Lincoln to the 
Presidency of the United States. It will, therefore, always 
remain as one of the singular contradictions in the political 
history of the country, that after seven years of almost 

l Twenty Years of Congress, Blaine, Vol. I, p. 272. 



190 REPUBLICANS AND FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 

exclusive agitation on this question, the Republicans, 
the first time they had the power as a distinctive political 
organization, to enforce the cardinal article of their political 
creed, quietly and unanimously abandoned it. And they 
abandoned it without a word of explanation." 1 

Mr. Blaine, in asserting that the Republican Party 
"unanimously abandoned" this cardinal article of its 
political creed, probably overstates the case. There were 
thousands of the party, and many of its foremost 
leaders, who had not surrendered their contention. At 
all events, the abandonment had not been made in such 
an authoritative and formal way as to commend itself to 
men yearning for peace and desiring an end of the con- 
troversy over the territories. This action, however, of 
the Republican Congress, in organizing the territories of 
Colorado, Dakota and Nevada without prohibitions as to 
slavery, constituted such a recognition of the constitu- 
tional rights of the slaveholders and a determination to 
abide by the decision of the Supreme Court, as to render 
baseless the charge that Virginia seceded in order to 
establish the right of her citizens to carry their slaves 
into the territories. As we shall hereafter see, Virginia 
was willing to re-enact the Missouri Compromise; make it 
a part of the constitution and thus forever exclude slavery 
from all the territory north of the historic line estab- 
lished by that settlement. 

The position of the Republican Party, with reference to 
the Fugitive Slave Law, presented some striking contra- 
dictions. Thus, in those Northern States where statutes 
had been enacted to nullify the law, the dominant political 
forces constituted the controlling element in the member- 

l Idem, p. 270. 



ATTITUDE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN 191 

ship of the party; yet the party itself, in its national plat- 
form, demanded neither the repeal nor amendment of 
the Federal statute. Again, there were men, prominent 
in its counsels, who, like Salmon P. Chase, frankly acknowl- 
edged that the provision of the constitution requiring the 
return of fugitive slaves, and the statute of the Federal 
Government carrying this clause into effect, would not 
be respected by one great element of the party and of the 
Northern people. On the other hand, Mr. Lincoln, who 
defeated him for the nomination to the Presidency, had 
counselled compliance with the requirements of the con- 
stitution and the law. Time and again he pointed out 
that it was the duty of citizens, and above all of public 
officials, to observe the obligations of the constitution 
with respect to this matter. " Stand with the Abolitionist 
in restoring the Missouri Compromise, and stand against 
him when he attempts to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law," 
was his declaration at Peoria, Illinois, October 16th, 1858. * 
While a member of Congress, Mr. Lincoln had, on the 
16th of January, 1849, introduced a bill for the abolition 
of slavery in the District of Columbia, with the consent of 
its voters and with compensation to the slaveholders. 
The fifth section of this bill provided: 

"The municipal authorities of Washington and George- 
town, within their respective jurisdictional limits, are 
hereby empowered and required to provide active and 
efficient means to arrest and deliver up to their owners all 
fugitive slaves escaping into said district." 2 

It was because of the authorship of this proposed Fugitive 

1 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H., 
Vol. I, p. 202. 

2 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H., 
Vol. I, p. 148. 



192 ATTITUDE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN 

Slave Law, that, upon his nomination to the Presidency, 
Wendell Philips denounced him, through the columns 
of The Liberator, as " the Slave Hound of Illinois." 1 

In his inaugural address, after alluding to what he terms 
"the plainly written" clause of the constitution relating 
to fugitive slaves, he declared : 

"It is scarcely questioned that this provision was in- 
tended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what 
we call 'fugitive slaves' and the intention of the law giver 
is the law. All members of Congress swear their support 
to the whole constitution — to this provision as much as 
any other. To the proposition then that slaves whose 
cases come within the terms of this clause 'shall be de- 
livered up' their oaths are unanimous. . . . 

" There is some difference of opinion whether this clause 
should be enforced by National or by state authority; but 
surely that difference is not a very material one. If the 
slave is to be surrendered, it can be of little consequence 
to him or to others by which authority it is done. And 
should any one, in any case, be content that his oath 
should go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy 
as to how it shall be kept?" 2 

l William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. Ill, p. 503. 
2 Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 6, 



XXVII 

Status of the Controversy Regarding Slavery, 

at the Time Virginia Seceded from 

the Union (Concluded) 

With respect to the institution of slavery, itself, in 
the Southern States, the position of the Republican Party, 
as a party, was even more reassuring. The platform of the 
party, upon which Mr. Lincoln was elected President, 
gave the most explicit assurance of the purpose of the incom- 
ing Administration to refrain from any interference with 
slavery, in the states where it was recognized by law. " The 
maintenance inviolate," declared that platform, "of the 
rights of the states, and especially of each state, to order 
and control its own domestic institutions, according to its 
own judgment exclusively, is essential to the balance of 
power on which the perfection and endurance of our polit- 
ical fabric depend." 1 

Mr. Lincoln was nominated chiefly because of his con- 
servative position with respect to slavery, over his more 
conspicuous opponents, Seward and Chase, who were 
defeated because of their more radical anti-slavery utter- 
ances. 

While never concealing his strong antipathy to the insti- 
tution, Mr. Lincoln always declared his regard for the 
constitutional rights of slaveholders, in the states where 
slavery existed. Time and again, he said, " I have no pur- 

Trom Platform of National Republican Party, Chicago Con- 
vention, May, 1860. 

193 



194 REPUBLICAN PARTY AND SLAVERY 

pose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution 
of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no 
lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." 1 

After his election, Mr. Lincoln, under date of December 
22, 1860, wrote to Alexander H. Stephens, " Do the people 
of the South really entertain fears that a Republican admin- 
istration would directly or indirectly interfere with the 
slaves, or with them about the slaves? If they do, I wish 
to assure you, as once a friend, and I still hope not an 
enemy, that there is no cause for such fears." 2 

The charge is often made that, despite the platform of 
the Republican Party and the ante-election pledges of its 
candidate, the people of the South were convinced that, 
with its advent to power, a movement for the abolition of 
slavery would be inaugurated; and that, because of this 
fear, the Cotton States seceded from the Union. No such 
charge can be made with respect to Virginia. Over two 
months before her secession, the Republican Party, as we 
have seen, acquired control of both branches of Congress, 
and • immediately proceeded to allay any such apprehen- 
sions by the adoption of resolutions and the enactment of 
laws of the most ultra pro-slavery type. 

In January, 1861, a series of resolutions was adopted by 
the Senate and the House of Representatives, among 
which was one declaring that Congress recognized, 

" Slavery as now existing in fifteen of the United States, 
by the usages and laws of those states, and we recog- 
nize no authority, legal or otherwise, outside of a state 
where it exists, to interfere with slaves or slavery in 
such states." 3 

'From President Lincoln's Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861. 
^Causes of the Civil War, Chadwick, p. 143. 
'Lincoln and Slavery, Arnold, p. 695. 



PRO-SLAVERY ATTITUDE OF CONGRESS 195 

In February, 1861, the House of Representatives adopted 
a resolution with but four dissenting votes wherein it was 
declared, "that neither the Federal Government, nor the 
people, have a purpose or a constitutional right to legis- 
late upon or interfere with slavery in any of the states of the 
Union." 

" Resolved, That those persons in the North who do not 
subscribe to the foregoing propositions are too insignificant 
in numbers and influence to excite the serious attention 
or alarm of any portion of the people of the Republic. " l 

Following these resolutions both Houses of Congress 
adopted by the necessary two-thirds vote, a joint reso- 
lution proposing an amendment to the Federal Constitution, 
as follows : 

Article 13. "No amendment shall be made to the con- 
stitution which shall authorize or give to Congress the 
power to abolish, or to interfere within any state, with the 
domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held 
to labor or service by the laws of said state." 

This amendment passed the House of Representatives 
February 28, 1861, by a vote of one hundred and thirty- 
three to sixty-five, and the Senate on the 2nd of March, 
1861, by a vote of twenty-four to twelve. Ohio and Mary- 
land promptly ratified this proposed amendment to the 
constitution, but the outbreak of the Civil War brought 
the movement to a close. 2 

In his inaugural address, President Lincoln reiterated 
his previous pledges and expressed his approval of the 
movement to adopt the amendment to the constitution 

^Idem, p. 695. 

2 Story on the Constitution, Story, Vol. II, p. 670, Note 2. 



196 PRO-SLAVERY AMENDMENT TO CONSTITUTION 

above referred to. Alluding to his oft quoted declaration 
that he had neither the legal right nor the inclination to 
interfere with slavery in the Southern States, he said: 

"I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I 
only press upon the public attention the most conclusive 
evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, 
peace and security of no section are to be any wise en- 
dangered by the now incoming Administration/' 

Continuing, he said, 

" I understand a proposed amendment to the constitu- 
tion — which amendment, however, I have not seen — has 
passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Govern- 
ment shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of 
the states, including that of persons held to service. To 
avoid misconception of what I have said, I depart from my 
purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to 
say that, holding such a provision to now be implied Con- 
stitutional Law, I have no objection to its being made 
expressed and irrevocable." 

Even after the conflict of arms had occurred, the position 
of the Administration was reiterated in the most solemn 
form. On the 22nd of April, 1861, Mr. Seward, as Secre- 
tary of State, in an official communication to Mr. Dayton, 
Minister to France, wrote : 

"The territories will remain in all respects the same, 
whether the revolution shall succeed or shall fail. The 
condition of slavery in the several states will remain just 
the same, whether it succeed or fail. . . . The rights of 
the states and the condition of every being in them will 
remain subject to exactly the same laws and forms of 
administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or 
whether it shall fail. In one case the states would be 
federally connected with the new Confederacy; in the other, 



PLEDGE OF CONGRESS AS TO OBJECT OF WAR 197 

they would, as now, be members of the United States; but 
their constitutions and laws, customs, habits and insti- 
tutions, in either case, will remain the same." 1 

On the 22nd of July, 1861, both houses of Congress, 
with but few dissenting votes, adopted a joint resolution 
which declared: 

"This war is not waged, on our part, in any spirit of 
oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, 
nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights 
or established institutions of those states; but to defend 
and maintain the supremacy of the constitution, and to 
preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and 
rights of the several states unimpaired; that, as soon as 
these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease." 2 

Such were the attitude of the Republican Party, the 
avowals and pledges of President Lincoln and the enact- 
ments of Congress, with respect to slavery, at the time of 
Virginia's secession. 

It is not, however, to be concluded that the Republican 
Party had renounced its hostility to slavery. The pledges 
referred to were simply assurances of the purpose of the 
Federal administration to respect the constitutional rights 
of states where the institution existed, and of their slave- 
holding citizens. Nor is it claimed that slavery itself had 
acquired, in Virginia, or elsewhere, in the Union, an in- 
definite lease of life. The forces which had destroyed 
slavery in other lands were ever at work. They were 
dynamic, and gathered ever increasing influence from the 
economic, political and ethical conditions of the times. 
Care must be taken not to confound the formally de- 
mise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Davis, Vol. I, p. 262. 
Moint Resolutions adopted by Congress, July 22, 1861. 



198 REPUBLICANS AND ABOLITIONISTS 

clared attitude of the Republican Party with that of the 
Abolitionists. The exact position of many of the leading 
anti-slavery men of the period is not always easy to deter- 
mine. Garrison and Phillips were, of course, Abolitionists. 
Sumner and Chase might be classed as belonging to 
either or both — Republicans and Abolitionists. "Yet," 
says Professor A. B. Hart, "two such conspicuous 
champions of anti-slavery as John Quincy Adams and 
Abraham Lincoln always said that they were not 
Abolitionists." 1 

Alluding to the extra-constitutional measures advocated 
by the Abolitionists, Mr. Lincoln in his speech at Quincy, 
111., October 13, 1858, said: 

"If there be any man in the Republican Party who is 
impatient over the necessity springing from its (slavery's) 
actual presence, and is impatient of the constitutional 
guarantees thrown around it, and would act in disregard 
of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will 
find his place somewhere else ; for we have a due regard, so 
far as we are capable of understanding them, for ail these 
things." 2 

So too with respect to armed invasions and the attempt 
of John Brown and his abettors to precipitate servile 
insurrection. 

Mr. Lincoln, in his speech at Cooper Union, New York, 
February 27th, 1860, said: 

"You charge that we stir up insurrections among your 
slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's 
Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; 

^Slavery and Abolition, Hart, p. 175. 

2 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H., 
Vol. I., p. 463. 



SLAVERY A DOOMED INSTITUTION 199 

and you have failed to implicate a single Republican 
in his Harper's Ferry enterprise." 1 . . . Continuing, he 
said: "John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a 
slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to 
get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused 
to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, 
with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not 
succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with 
the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination 
of kings and emperors." 2 

If it be urged that Mr. Lincoln's oft-quoted words 
uttered before his nomination for the Presidency, that 
"The Government could not endure half slave and half 
free," were at war with his assurances and that Virginia 
was thus threatened in her "peculiar institution," yet it 
must be remembered that Mr. Lincoln, time and again be- 
fore his election, disclaimed any such purpose and denied 
that his words were susceptible of any such construction. 

Morse, in his Biography of Lincoln, says: "Again and 
again Mr. Lincoln called attention to the fact that he 
had expressed neither 'a doctrine' nor an 'invitation'; 
nor any 'purpose,' nor 'policy' whatsoever." 3 

To quote the language of Mr. Lincoln himself in meeting 
the charge in his debate with Stephen A. Douglas : 

"In the passage I indicated no wish or purpose of my 
own. I simply expressed my expectations. Cannot the 
Judge perceive a distinction between a purpose and an 
expectation? I have often expressed an expectation to 
die, but I have never expressed a wish to die." 4 

1 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H., 
Vol. I., p. 607. 
Hdem, p. 609. 

^Abraham Lincoln, Morse, p. 123. 
4 Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 59. 



200 SLAVERY A DOOMED INSTITUTION 

Thomas Jefferson and other Virginia opponents of 
slavery had often made similar predictions. Even as a 
prophecy of emancipation, it involved no other suggestion 
than that slavery was an antiquated institution at war 
with the genius of our government and the spirit of the age 
and was doomed by forces world wide in their potency to 
ultimate extinction. 



XXVIII 

The Attitude of Certain Northern States 

The constitution of the United States provides: 
"2. A person charged in any state with treason, felony, 
or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found 
in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority 
of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be 
removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime. 

No person held to service or labor in one state, under 
the laws thereof, escaping into another state, shall, in 
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be dis- 
charged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered 
up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor 
may be due." 1 

The first of the foregoing clauses provides for the return 
of fugitives from justice, and the second, of fugitive slaves. 

The attitude of certain Northern States with reference 
to these two provisions of the constitution was a subject 
of profound importance in the years immediately preceding 
the Civil War, and constituted one of the greatest griev- 
ances of the people of the slaveholding states. 

At the time the constitution was adopted, slavery 
existed in every one of the thirteen states except Massa- 
chusetts, though in some others acts had been passed 
providing for its gradual abolition. It was deemed 
essential, therefore, to the peaceful relations of the several 

'Constitution of the United States, Article IV, Sub-section 2. 

201 



202 ORIGIN OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 

states as well as the legal rights of slaveholders that some 
provision should be inserted in the Federal Constitution 
dealing with the return of fugitive slaves as well as fugitives 
from justice. If a slave could, by passing from New 
York into Massachusetts, absolve himself from slavery 
with no remedy for the master except the grace of the 
latter state, in which the institution was not recognized, 
then not only were the rights of the slaveholding citizens 
of New York dependent upon the laws of Massachusetts, 
but such conditions would doubtless engender strife and 
reprisals between the different states of the Union. 

The necessity, as well as the justice, of fugitive slave 
laws was recognized almost contemporaneously with the 
introduction of slavery into this country. Thus, in the 
Article of Confederation adopted in 1643, between the 
colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut and 
New Haven, it was provided, 

"If any servant runn away from his master into any 
other of these Confederated Jurisdiccons, that in such case 
upon the Certificate of one Magistrate in the Jurisdiccon 
out of which the said servant fled, or upon other due 
proofe, the said servant shall be delivered either to his 
master or any other that pursues and brings such certyficate 
or proofe." 1 

Provisions of like character were incorporated in many 
of the treaties between the various colonies and the Indian 
tribes, and later between the United States Government 
and the Indians. 

The Ordinance of 1784, as adopted by Congress, con- 
tained no provision for the return of fugitive slaves escap- 
ing into the territory northwest of the Ohio River, and as 

1 Plymouth Colony Records, IX, p. 5, and Fugitive Slaves, Boston, 
1891, McDougall, p. 7. 



FUGITIVE SLAVES AND THE CONSTITUTION 203 

we have seen, the provision prohibiting slavery therein 
had been stricken out before its adoption. 

On the 16th of March, 1785, Rufus King of Massachu- 
setts presented a resolution amending the Ordinance of 
1784, so as to prohibit slavery in the northwest territory, 
which resolution was referred to a committee consisting 
of King, William Howell and William Ellery; the last two 
members being from Rhode Island. 

On the 6th of April, 1785, a report was presented from 
this committee to Congress, providing for an amendment 
of the existing ordinance, so as to exclude slavery from 
the northwest territory after the year 1800, " the resolu- 
tion to be an article of compact" between the thirteen 
original states and those created out of the territory. 
The amendment so reported also made provision for the 
return to their masters of fugitive slaves escaping into the 
territory from any of the thirteen original states. 1 

No action was taken upon this report, but at the time 
the Ordinance of 1787 was under consideration, July 
13th, 1787, a provision was inserted prohibiting slavery 
in the northwest territory along with a fugitive slave 
clause, by the unanimous vote of all the states present. 2 

The same year, the Constitutional Convention, in session 
at Philadelphia, inserted a like fugitive slave clause in the 
Federal Constitution. 

On the 12th of February, 1793, Congress passed an act 
providing the method for carrying into effect the section 
of the constitution relating to fugitives from justice and 
fugitive slaves. Both subjects are treated and provided 
for in the same act. It passed both houses of Congress 

^History of the Ordinance of 1787, American Antiquarian Society, 
new series, Vol. V, p. 315. 
Hdem, p. 335. 



204 RETURN OF FUGITIVE SLAVES 

by practically unanimous votes — Washington approving 
the bill with his signature. 

By this statute, the authorities of the several states 
were charged with the duty of executing the law with 
reference to the return of fugitives from justice. 

With respect, however, to fugitive slaves, the authority 
and burden of dealing with their return was placed upon 
officers of the Federal Government as well as upon certain 
state officials. Despite the somewhat cumbrous character 
of the law, the return of fugitives from justice and of 
fugitive slaves was assured, and little controversy arose 
until some forty years after its enactment. But with the 
rise of the Abolitionists at the North difficulties in execut- 
ing the law began to appear — especially as to fugitive 
slaves. 

William Lloyd Garrison began the publication of The 
Liberator in 1831. The American Anti-Slavery Society 
was organized in 1833 and soon thereafter the Under- 
ground Railroad commenced its operations. Under the 
influence of these forces, not only was the execution of the 
law with reference to fugitive slaves in many of the Northern 
States greatly hindered but the slaves enticed or escaping 
from their masters became much more numerous. The 
irritating effects of these conditions upon Southern slave- 
holders were intensified by the suggestion that the law 
was fairly enforced as long as there were slaves in the 
so-called free states. In time, however, the Legislatures 
of many of the Northern States adopted state laws which 
were undoubtedly designed to defeat the execution of the 
Federal statute, and thus was added the sanction of states 
through their law-making bodies to the illegal attitude 
and acts of their citizens. This political action of these 
states not only aroused the indignation of slaveholders, 



THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 205 

but enlisted in their behalf the sympathies of their non- 
slaveholding fellow citizens. The attitude of the Abo- 
litionists and the action of the Northern States above 
referred to were regarded by the people of Virginia as 
a violation of the constitutional rights of their state, as 
well as a wanton injury to the property interests of her 
slaveholding citizens. The Abolitionists, by every form 
of suggestion and appeal, incited and assisted slaves to 
desert their masters, while the Underground Railroad 
provided increasing facilities for accomplishing the result. 
Professor A. B. Hart, of Harvard University, says: 

"The Underground Railroad was not a route but a net- 
work; not an organization, but a conspiracy of thou- 
sands of people banded together for the deliberate purpose 
of depriving their Southern neighbors of their property 
and of defying the Fugitive Slave Laws of the United 
States." 1 

With such a system in active operation, it only became 
necessary, in order to invest the whole movement with 
the dignity of state usurpation and wrong, for states to 
enact the so-called Personal Liberty Laws. 

1 Slavery and Abolition, Hart, p. 228. 



XXIX 

The Attitude of Certain Northern States 
(Concluded) 

Beginning in 1837, Massachusetts adopted the first of 
the so-called Personal Liberty Laws, which were followed 
by others of like import enacted by Vermont, New York and 
Connecticut. The ostensible object of these statutes was 
to protect free negroes, but as no such laws were necessary 
until the rise of the Abolitionists and the operations of 
the Underground Railroad, they were generally accepted 
as efforts on the part of these states to assist these agencies 
and defeat the clause of the constitution of the United 
States which provided for the return of fugitive slaves. 

In 1842, the Supreme Court of the United States decided 
that so much of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 as author- 
ized or required state officials to assist in executing the law 
was unconstitutional, and that upon Federal authorities 
must rest the whole burden. 1 This decision was followed 
by a new series of statutes in Massachusetts, Vermont, 
Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. 2 

On the 18th of September, 1850, Congress passed another 
Fugitive Slave Law amending the act of 1793 so as to 
charge Federal officials with the whole duty of carrying 
into effect the clause in the constitution providing for the 
return of fugitive slaves, and to remedy the difficulties re- 
sulting from the action of the Abolitionists and the acts 

*See Decision in Case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539. 
"Fugitive Slaves, McDougall, p. 66. 

206 



THE PERSONAL LIBERTY LAWS 207 

passed by certain states as above referred to. This aroused 
fresh antagonism to the constitution and the efforts of 
the Federal Government to carry the same into effect. 
The constitutionality of the new law was denied and though 
affirmed by the Supreme Court, its execution in the fore- 
going states was much embarrassed by a new series of 
state statutes. Laws of like import, with like results, were 
also enacted by Wisconsin, Michigan, Connecticut and 
Maine. 

In some instances, the decision of the Supreme Court of 
the United States affirming the constitutionality of the 
statute was challenged by the legislative department of 
state governments, and the right of the former tribunal to 
fix the obligations of states and citizens with respect to the 
law strenuously denied. 

Thus, in Wisconsin one Sherman M. Booth had been 
indicted in the Federal Court for a violation of the Fugitive 
Slave Law enacted by Congress, and, after trial and con- 
viction, was sentenced for the offense. An application for 
a writ of habeas corpus was presented by Booth to the 
Supreme Court of Wisconsin and his release prayed for 
on the ground that the Federal statute was unconstitutional. 
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin took cognizance of the 
case and discharged the prisoner from the custody of the 
Federal authorities. 1 

An appeal was taken to, the Supreme Court of the United 
States where the constitutionality of the Federal statute 
was affirmed, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Wis- 
consin reversed and Booth remanded to custody. 2 There- 
upon, the General Assembly of Wisconsin on the 16th of 

Hn re Sherman M. Booth, 3rd Wisconsin Rep., p. 13. 
2 Ableman vs. Booth and United States vs. Booth, 21st Howard, 
p. 506. 



208 STATE DEFIANCE OF FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS 

March, 1859, adopted a series of resolutions in which, after 
denying the right of the United States Supreme Court 
to take cognizance of the above mentioned case, they 
declared : 

"That the government, formed by the constitution of 
the United States, was not made the exclusive or final 
judge of the powers delegated to itself: but that as in all 
other cases of compact among parties having no common 
judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself 
as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of 
redress. 

"That the principle and construction contended for by 
the party which now rules in the councils of the nation, 
that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the 
extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of 
despotism; since the discretion of those who administer 
the government, and not the constitution, would be the 
measure of their powers; that the several states which 
formed that instrument being sovereign and independent 
have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction 
and that a positive defiance by those sovereignties of all 
unauthorized acts done or attempted to be done under color 
of that instrument is the right remedy." 1 

These outspoken and persistent attempts of great states 
to repudiate their obligations to the constitution and to 
nullify the laws of Congress had a most reactionary in- 
fluence upon slaveholders and their sympathizers in Vir- 
ginia and the South and filled the minds of thoughtful men 
with the gravest forebodings for the peace and preser- 
vation of the Union. 

President Buchanan in his message to Congress, Decem- 
ber, 1860, refers to the action of the states in nullifying the 

^Journal of the General Assembly of Wisconsin, Session 1859, 
pp. 463 and 865. 



CONGRESS ON STATE INTERFERENCE 209 

Fugitive Slave Law enacted by Congress, as "the most 
palpable violation of constitutional duty which has yet 
been committed." 

Governor Banks in his address before the Legislature of 
Massachusetts which assembled on the first Wednesday 
in January, 1861, referring to the statute enacted in that 
state antagonistic to the act of Congress for the return of 
fugitive slaves, and the consequent imputation which it 
brought upon the loyalty of Massachusetts to the Union 
and its constitution, said: 

"It is because in the face of her just claims to high 
honor I do not love to hear unjust reproaches passed upon 
her fame — that I say as I do, in the presence of God and with 
a heart filled with responsibilities that must rest upon 
every American citizen in these distempered times, I can- 
not but regard the maintenance of a statute, although it 
may be within the extremest limits of constitutional 
power, which is so unnecessary to the public weal and so 
detrimental to the public peace as an inexcusable public 
wrong. I hope by common consent it may be removed 
from the statute book and such guarantees as individual 
freedom demands be sought in new legislation." 1 

Congress, in February, 1861, adopted the report of the 
Committee of Thirty-three of which Thomas Corwin of Ohio 
was chairman, which after reciting "that all attempts on 
the part of the Legislatures of any of the states to obstruct 
or hinder the recovery," of fugitive slaves, "are in dero- 
gation of the constitution . . . and dangerous to the 
peace of the Union," resolved 

"That the several states be respectfully requested to 
cause their statutes to be revised, with a view to ascertain 

^History of Massachusetts in the Civil War, Schouler, Vol. 1, p. 6. 



210 RHODE ISLAND ALONE ACCEDES 

if any of them are in conflict with or tend to embarrass or 
hinder the execution of the laws of the United States . . . 
for the delivery up of persons held to labour by the laws of 
any state and escaping therefrom; and the Senate and 
House of Representatives earnestly request that all enact- 
ments having such tendency be forthwith repealed as 
required by a just sense of constitutional obligations and by 
a due regard for the peace of the Republic." 1 

President Lincoln in his inaugural address, referring to 
the clause of the constitution providing for the return of 
fugitive slaves, and the contention as to whether the same 
should be executed by Federal or state officials, said : " If 
the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of little consequence 
to him or to others by which authority it is done. And 
should any one in any case be content that his oath should 
go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how 
it shall be kept?" 

Despite these considerations, Rhode Island alone repealed 
the obnoxious statutes, and great leaders of the Republican 
Party frankly confessed that the constitution and the law 
would not be respected in certain of the Northern States. 
Salmon P. Chase, speaking in the Peace Conference at 
Washington, in February, 1861, alluding to the provision 
of the constitution for the return of fugitive slaves, said: 
/"The people of the free states, however, who believe that 
{ slave-holding is wrong cannot and will not aid in the 
reclamation, and the stipulation becomes therefore a dead 
letter." 2 

Of the Personal Liberty Laws Mr. George Lunt of Boston 
in his work, Origin of the Late War, says: "They con- 

'See Reports of Thirty-second Congress, and Twenty Years of 
Congress, Blaine, pp. 258-265. 

^Debates in Peace Conference Convention, Crittenden, p. 430. 



FUGITIVES FROM JUSTICE 211 

stitute an extreme exemplification of the broadest claim 
to state sovereignty, and put the states which authorized 
them in direct hostility to the United States. They were 
not one whit more defensible than the Rebellion itself to 
which they had such a principal part in preparing the minds 
of the seceding states." 1 

Closely associated with the controversies growing out of 
the return of fugitive slaves and the action of certain 
Northern States, in defeating the provision of the consti- 
tution in regard thereto, was the attitude of many of the 
same states with respect to the provision for the return of 
the fugitives from justice. A few notable instances will 
suffice to illustrate the subject and its profound influence 
in arraying Southern States, as states, against certain of 
their Northern sisters. 

In 1837 the Governor of Georgia made requisition upon 
the Governor of Maine for the return to the former state of 
the captain of a ship charged with aiding and abetting a 
slave to desert his master. The Governor of Maine refused 
to comply with the requisition, alleging that the laws of that 
state did not recognize slavery or the offense complained 
of as an indictable one. Thereupon the Legislature of 
Georgia petitioned Congress to enact some law to compel 
state authorities to comply with this provision of the 
Federal Constitution. No action, however, was taken by 
Congress, nor was the slave or his abductor ever carried 
back to Georgia. 2 

In 1841 the Governor of Virginia made requisition upon 
the Governor of New York for the return of two men 
indicted in the former state for aiding and enticing slaves 
to leave their masters. William H. Seward was at that 

^Origin of the Late War, Lunt, p. 217. 

^Fugitive Slaves, Boston, 1891, McDougall, p. 41. 



212 NON-COMPLIANCE WITH CONSTITUTION 

time Governor of New York. He refused to honor the 
requisition, alleging that the offense for which the parties 
r -\ were indicted was not one deemed criminal by the laws of 
New York or the nations of the world. A long and peace- 
destroying controversy in which the Legislatures of the two 
states became involved followed; but the fugitives were 
never returned, and the people of Virginia felt that the 
highest law officer of a sister state had been recreant to his 
obligations to the Federal Constitution and reckless of the 
rights of their state. 

In 1860, the Governor of Kentucky made requisition 
upon the Governor of Ohio for the return to the former 
state of a fugitive from justice indicted for the violation 
of a statute imposing penalties upon persons aiding slaves 
to escape from their masters. The Governor of Ohio re- 
fused to honor the requisition; thereupon the State of 
Kentucky instituted a suit in the Supreme Court of the 
United States against the Governor of Ohio, to compel him 
to comply with the provision of the Federal Constitution 
above referred to and deliver up the fugitive from justice. 

The Governor of Ohio interposed as a defense the same 
reasons advanced by Governor Seward. But the Supreme 
Court of the United States held that the defense was 
insufficient, and that it was the constitutional duty of the 
Governor of Ohio to deliver up the fugitive. The court 
declared : J' The objection made to the validity of the 
S indictment is altogether untenable." 1 The court also 
decided that the suit was properly instituted, in the right 
forum, and that the Governor of Ohio was under con- 
stitutional obligations to deliver up the fugitive to the 
authorities of Kentucky, but that no judgment could be 

^Kentucky against Dcnnison, 24th Howard, p. 107. 



EFFECTS IN VIRGINIA OF NULLIFICATION 213 

entered by the court granting the relief prayed for. Chief 
Justice Taney, speaking for the court, after alluding to 
the fact that the framers of the constitution confidently 
believed that "A sense of justice and of mutual interest 
would insure a faithful execution of the provision," de- 
clared: "If the Governor of Ohio refuses to discharge this 
duty there is no power delegated to the General Govern- 
ment, either through the judicial department or any other 
department, to use any coercive means to compel him." 1 

This decision brought home to the people of Virginia 
the fact that the authorities of certain of the Northern 
States were violating their obligations under the Federal 
Constitution, and yet the Federal Government was unable 
to remedy the wrong and maintain the rights of the in- 
jured commonwealths. 

These conditions and the attitude of the Northern States 
which thus nullified the provisions of the Federal Constitu- 
tion undoubtedly moved thousands of Virginians and 
other citizens of the South to secession. They refused 
to remain members of a Union in which the rights of 
their states were thus violated by their sister common- 
wealths. 

But the claim that Virginia seceded in order to avert 
pecuniary loss resulting from the non-return of fugitive 
slaves is negatived by the fact that by such action she 
surrendered all the benefits from the Federal Constitution 
and statute. In the Union, some protection was secured 
to the state with respect to the rights thus menaced. 
Outside of the Union, every such benefit was lost, and the 
state stood absolutely without redress. 

^Kentucky against Dennison, 24th Howard, p. 109. 



XXX 

The Abolitionists 

We come now to consider the fourth force or factor with 
which Virginia had to reckon, namely, the Abolitionists. 
These constituted a body of earnest, tireless agitators — 
men and women who had devoted mind and heart to the 
work of destroying slavery. No consideration of the 
maintenance of law, the national peace, nor the preserva- 
tion of the Union availed to moderate their zeal or circum- 
scribe their efforts. Slavery was a sin against God — and 
to the King of kings they owed their first allegiance. 
To counsels of moderation, to suggestions of expediency, 
to appeals for law, they returned the oft reiterated answer 
— Delenda est Cathargo! The orderly processes of time — 
the force of public opinion exerted through law, rather 
than against law, were to them but the suggestions of 
cowardice and a means for prolonging the life of an in- 
stitution, the measure of whose sin cried unto Heaven. 
Fight Slavery! — now and always — wherever found and 
by every weapon known to the wit of man, was the burden 
of their message. Keep it out of the territories? Yes! 
and for the contest depend not alone upon the laws of 
Congress; but send armed men to the prairies of Kansas 
and hold the land against the slaveholders and their slaves 
by fire and the sword. Opposed to a Fugitive Slave 
Statute? Yes! — contest its enactment by Congress and 
defeat its execution when it becomes a law. Let the free 
states nullify this Federal statute by state laws; let mobs 

214 



GARRISON AND PHILLIPS 215 

rescue from Federal officials the fugitives in their custody; 
and then cover the land with the conspiracy of the " Under- 
ground Railroad" by means of which the slave might 
pass to the freedom which awaited him beyond the Canadian 
border. 

But it was slavery in its citadel — the existence of the 
institution in the slave states — that aroused their fiercest 
antagonism and rallied their forces to a battle which 
should never end but with its complete destruction. 
From this body of militant agitators and reformers, the 
slaveholders of Virginia could expect no quarter, and the 
commonwealth no surcease from the agitations so destruc- 
tive of her peace. 

William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were the 
foremost leaders of this great fellowship, and in no year 
of grace were their demands more insistent and their 
assaults more aggressive than in the troublous days im- 
mediately preceding the Civil War. Amid all appeals 
for the maintenance of law and the preservation of peace 
might be heard their voices like fire-bells at night, denounc- 
ing the Union and the constitution and demanding the 
immediate abolition of slavery. But by none of these 
things was Virginia moved to secession. As declared by 
Henderson, the English military critic, "The wildest 
threats of the ' Black Republicans/ their loudly expressed 
determination in defiance of the constitution, to abolish 
slavery, if necessary, by the bullet and the sabre, shook 
in no degree whatever her loyalty to the Union." 1 

For none of Virginia's grievances nor those of her slave- 
holders against the Abolitionists was secession a cure. 
Within the Union and under the cegis of the constitution 

1 Stonewall Jackson, Henderson, Vol. I, p. 122. 



216 SECESSION NO PROTECTION 

was to be found her surest defense against all their as- 
saults. By secession she would surrender her interest in 
the territories and all claim of right to introduce slaves 
therein. By secession she would forfeit all the benefits of 
the Fugitive Slave Law. By secession she would lose the 
strong arm of the National Government to defend her 
against assaults, whether by lawless bands or the legis- 
lative enactments of hostile states. Even with respect to 
servile insurrections her withdrawal from the Union would 
in no way abate the danger but only lessen her power to 
cope with the problem. John Brown and his band were 
captured by United States soldiers and the flag of the 
Union carried protection to the inmates of every lonely 
manor house and cabin throughout her borders, whether 
menaced by the slaves themselves or the emissaries of 
those who plotted against her peace. Of all these facts 
the Abolitionists had the profoundest appreciation. Hence 
for years they advocated disunion as a condition precedent 
to the attainment of their great end — the abolition of 
slavery. 



XXXI 

The Abolitionists and Disunion 

The disunion sentiments and efforts of the Abolitionists 
may be traced through the declarations of their leaders 
and the platforms of their societies, enunciated from time 
to time, during a long series of years antedating the Civil 
War. Thus in January, 1843, the Massachusetts Anti- 
Slavery Society adopted the following resolution: 

" That the compact which exists between the North and 
the South is a covenant with Death and an agreement with 
Hell — involving both parties in atrocious criminality, and 
should be immediately annulled." 1 

These sentiments were affirmed and reiterated by the 
American Anti-Slavery Society at its tenth anniversary 
meeting in New York City, May, 1844, where among 
other declarations the Federal Constitution was denounced 
as " a covenant with Death and an agreement with Hell," 
and the motto adopted " No Union with Slaveholders." 2 

In 1854, William Lloyd Garrison declared, "There is 
but one honest, straightforward course to pursue if we 
would see the slave power overthrown — the Union must 
be dissolved." 3 And Wendell Phillips re-echoed the 
sentiment in the no less explicit declaration, "As to dis- 
union, it must and will come. Calhoun wants it at one 

William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. Ill, p. 88. 
Hdem, p. 100. 
3 Idem, p. 414. 

217 



218 WORCESTER DISUNION CONVENTION, 1857 

end of the Union, Garrison wants it at the other. It is 
written in the counsel of God." 1 

Mr. Schouler, referring to the foregoing declaration of 
Mr. Garrison and the occasion, says: "And such was the 
general tenor of anniversary speeches and resolutions 
through the next six years, whenever and wherever 
meetings were held of our Anti-Slavery Societies." 2 

These disunion sentiments continued with growing 
insistence in the declarations of leading Abolitionists and 
in the platform of their societies. On the 15th of January, 
1857, there assembled at Worcester, Mass., the " Disunion 
Convention." This body adopted, among other resolu- 
tions, one demanding the immediate dissolution of the 
Union, and declaring that "The sooner the separation 
takes place, the more peaceful it will be; but that peace 
or war is a secondary consideration in view of our present 
perils. Slavery must be conquered, peaceably if we can, 
forcibly if we must." 3 This convention appointed a 
State Committee of seven, of which the Rev. Thomas 
Wentworth Higginson was made chairman, to direct the 
propaganda of the new movement and a general con- 
vention composed of delegates from all the free states 
was recommended. A call for the latter convention was 
accordingly issued in July, 1857, signed by Mr. Higginson, 
Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and other 
leading Abolitionists. Cleveland, Ohio, was selected as 
the place for the convention, because a majority of the 
signers to the call, some seven hundred in number, were 
citizens of that state. The 28th of October was fixed as 
the date for the meeting of the convention. This body, 

Wendell Phillips, Martin, p. 207. 

2 History of United States, Schouler, Vol. V, p. 319. 

s William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. Ill, p. 457. 



GARRISON URGES DISUNION 219 

however, failed to assemble because of the terrible financial 
panic which began in September of that year, — the leaders 
deciding to postpone the "projected Northern Convention 
until a more auspicious period." 1 

In his speech before the "Disunion Convention" at 
Worcester, Mass., above referred to, William Lloyd Gar- 
rison said: 

"Again, I am for the speedy overthrow of the Union 
because, while it exists, I see no end to the extension of 
slavery. I see everything in the hands of the Slave Power 
now — all the resources of the country, — every dollar in the 
Treasury, the Navy, the Judiciary, everything in its grasp ; 
and I know that with all these means and facilities and the 
disposition to use them, nothing can successfully contend 
against it. 

" I am sure of another thing — that when the North shall 
withdraw from the Union, there will be an end to Southern 
filibustering and schemes of annexation. Then the tables 
will be turned and we shall have the slaveholders at our 
doors crying for mercy. Rely upon it, there is not an 
intelligent slaveholder at the South who is for a dissolution 
of the Union. I do not care what the folly or insanity of the 
Southern Nullifiers may be; . . . not one of them is willing 
to have the cord cut and the South permitted to try the 
experiment. If it be otherwise, God grant that she may 
soon take this step and see whether she will be able to hold 
a single slave one hour after the deed is done." 2 

No opportunity was neglected to inculcate sentiments 
of disloyalty to the Union, hatred of the constitution, 
and disregard of the statutes enacted by the Federal 
Government bearing upon slavery. Sometimes the Aboli- 
tionists would emphasize their position and lend a touch of 

'Idem, p. 463. 
2 Idem, pp. 456-7. 



220 ABOLITIONISTS' ASSAULTS ON EMINENT MEN 

realism to their sentiments by burning before the mul- 
titudes copies of the constitution and obnoxious laws 
passed by Congress. 

Thus at Framingham, Mass., on the fourth of July, 1854, 
at the open-air celebration of the day by the Abolitionists, 
William Lloyd Garrison burned copies of the constitution, 
the Fugitive Slave Law, and the opinions of several Judges 
of the Federal Courts in Massachusetts. The Liberator 
records that Mr. Garrison, "holding up the United States 
constitution branded it as the source and parent of all the 
other atrocities — a covenant with Death and an agreement 
with Hell — and consumed it to ashes on the spot, exclaim- 
ing, 'So perish all compromises with Tyranny,' and 'Let 
all the people say Amen/ and a tremendous shout of 
'Amen' went up to Heaven in ratification of the deed." 1 

No eminence of public station nor personal worth 
availed to shield from the assaults of these Abolition leaders. 
William Lloyd Garrison alluding to Webster's eulogies upon 
the constitution declared, "Let Daniel Webster, the 
greatest and meanest of his countrymen, exhaust his 
powers of eulogy upon it if he will ; the effort will but render 
his character base and contemptible with posterity." 2 

Wendell Phillips, referring to the " Defender of the Con- 
stitution," said: "God gives us great scoundrels for texts 
to anti-slavery sermons. See to it, when nature has pro- 
vided you a monster like Webster, that you exhibit him — 
himself a whole menagerie — throughout the country." 3 
Subsequently in an article in The Liberator on Mr. Lincoln — 
then but recently nominated for the Presidency, headed 

Hdem, p. 412. 
2 Idem, p. 184. 

"Speeches, Lectures and Letters, Wendell Phillips, Lee & Shepard, 
1892, p. 48. 



ABOLITIONISTS AND SLAVE INSURRECTIONS 221 

"Abraham Lincoln, the Slave Hound of Illinois/' Wendell 
Phillips wrote : " We gibbet a Northern hound to-day side 
by side with the infamous Mason of Virginia." 1 

Theodore Parker alluding to the Federal judges and 
officials in Boston who bore a part in the execution of the 
Fugitive Slave Law, addressing the " Spirits of Tyrants" 
and apostrophising Cain, Herod, Nero, and Torquemada, 
proceeds as follows: "Come up, thou heap of wickedness, 
George Jeffreys! Thy hands deep purple with the blood 
of thy murdered fellow men! . . . What! Dost thou 
shudder? Thou turn back? These not thy kindred? It 
is true, George Jeffreys. And these are not thy kin. . . . 
Thou wouldst not send a man into bondage for two pounds. 
I will not rank thee with men who in Boston for ten dollars 
would enslave a negro now." 2 

Even the patriotic enthusiasm of Longfellow in his " Ode 
to the Union, " aroused Garrison's ire, who denounced it as 
"a eulogy dripping with the blood of imbruted humanity," 
and for the poet's conception of the "Ship of State" he 
substituted : 

. . . "'Perfidious bark! 

Built i' th' eclipse and rigged with curses dark.' . . . 
Destined to go down full many a fathom deep, to the joy 
and exultation of all who are yearning for the deliverance 
of a groaning world." 3 (a) 

William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. Ill, p. 503. 

2 Theodore Parker, A Biography, Frothingham, p. 431. 

3 William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. Ill, p. 280. 

a Note : The author has not cited any examples of the terms 
employed by the leaders of the Abolitionists in referring to the 
Southern people. If Webster were denounced as a "monster" 
and Lincoln as a "slave-hound" because, in their devotion to the 
Union and their respect for law, they would protect the con- 
stitutional rights of slaveholders, the reader may readily imagine 



222 ABOLITIONISTS APPLAUDED JOHN BROWN 

But the Abolitionists did not confine their efforts to 
denunciations of the constitution and its defenders, or in 
devising schemes for the overthrow of the Union. They 
actually secured the enactment by many Northern Legis- 
latures of so-called Personal Liberty Laws, designed to 
nullify the Fugitive Slave Law passed by Congress. In 
like manner many of them were the apologists, if not the 
instigators, of servile insurrections, of which John Brown's 
venture was at once the fell offspring, and the dread sign 
of more to follow. William Lloyd Garrison declared that 
Brown deserved "to be held in grateful and honorable 
remembrance, to the latest posterity, by all those who glory 
in the deeds of a Wallace or a Tell, a Washington or a 
Warren." 1 Theodore Parker said: "No American has 
died in this century whose chance of earthly immortality is 
worth half so much as John Brown's." 2 Wendell Phillips 
speaking in Plymouth Church declared: "John Brown 
violated the law. Yes. On yonder desk lie the inspired 
words of men who died violent deaths for breaking the laws 
of Rome. Why do you listen to them so reverently? 
Huss and Wycliffe violated laws. Why honor them? 
George Washington, had he been caught before 1783, would 
have died on the gibbet for breaking the laws of his 
sovereign." 3 

William Lloyd Garrison, while insisting that he himself 

the denunciations poured upon the citizens of the slaveholding 
states. For twenty-five years the people of the South, their 
civilization and morality were arraigned by orators and editors, 
preachers and poets, dramatists and novelists, in terms without 
parallel in polemic literature. 

'Idem, Vol. Ill, pp. 489-491. 

2 Theodore Parker, A Biography, Frothingham, p. 463. 

3 Speeches, Lectures and Letters, Wendell Phillips, Lee & Shepard, 
1892, p. 279. 



ABOLITIONISTS AIDED JOHN BROWN 223 

was a "peace man" and opposed to the use of "carnal 
weapons," proclaimed: "I am prepared to say, success to 
every slave insurrection at the South and in every slave 
country," 1 and Theodore Parker re-affirmed the senti- 
ment in the declaration: " I should like, of all things, to see 
an insurrection of slaves. It must be tried many times 
before it succeeds, as at last it must." 2 

Wendell Phillips speaking at the grave of John Brown 
said: "Insurrection was a harsh, horrid word to millions 
a month ago. John Brown went a whole generation beyond 
it, claiming the right for white men to help the slave to 
freedom by arms. And now men run up and down not dis- 
puting his principles." 3 

Admiral Chadwick in his recent work, The Causes of 
the Civil War, thus presents the position of prominent 
Abolitionists with respect to servile insurrections and 
especially the efforts to precipitate one at Harper's Ferry: 

" Parker was also one who could say, 'I should like of all 
things to see an insurrection of slaves. It must be tried 
many times before it succeeds, as at last it must,' an 
expression which was the outcome of his own full knowledge 
of what was brewing. Of this the others of the Boston 
Secret Committee, Stearns, Higginson, Howe, and Sanborn, 
as already shown on the authority of the last, also had full 
information, as had Gerrit Smith, with the exception, per- 
haps, of the exact place at which Brown was to strike. 
Brown's funds were supplied by these men, who were 
accessories before the fact in the fullest meaning of the 
phrase. It is impossible to justify such actions. 

" Stearns and his fellows were not martyrs; they did not 

William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. Ill, p. 489-491. 
2 Theodore Parker, A Biography, Frothingham, p. 475. 
3 Speeches, Lectures and Letters, Wendell Phillips, Lee & Shepard, 
1892, p. 291. 



224 THE UNION PROTECTS SLAVEHOLDERS 

risk their lives; they were not in open warfare; they were 
simply in secret conspiracy to carry by bolder instruments 
throughout the South the horrors of Hayti, still vivid in 
the recollection of many then yet living." 1 

But the Abolitionists appreciated that it was the Union 
and its power that stood as the strongest barrier against 
the success of their instigations to servile insurrection, and 
held in leash the giant form, Slavery, with its pike and 
brand. Long ago Mr. Garrison had said: 

"What protects the South from instant destruction? 
Our physical force. Break the chain which binds her to 
the Union and the scenes of St. Domingo would be wit- 
nessed throughout her borders. She may affect to laugh 
at this prophecy but she knows her security lies in Northern 
bayonets. Nay, she has repeatedly taunted the free 
states with being pledged to protect her." 2 

Causes of the Civil War, Chadwick, p. 84. 

^William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. I, p. 309. 



XXXII 

The Abolitionists and Disunion (Concluded) 

These citations from the deliverances of the great 
leaders of the Abolitionists will give some idea of the 
motives and methods which pervaded that fellowship. 
With tireless insistence they went forward with their labors 
for the abolition of slavery and the dissolution of the 
Union, the latter being deemed a condition precedent 
to the complete accomplishment of the former. Only 
the action of South Carolina, which brought the nation 
face to face with a practical attempt at disunion, served 
to suspend the efforts of the Abolitionists to effect a like 
result. This momentous step on the part of South Carolina 
was received with exultant satisfaction — William Lloyd 
Garrison declaring, "All Union-saving efforts are simply 
idiotic. At last 'the covenant with Death' is annulled, 
and the 'agreement with Hell' broken, at least by the 
action of South Carolina, and ere long by all the slave- 
holding states, for their doom is one." 1 And Wendell 
Phillips re-echoed the sentiment: "Let the South march 
off with flags and trumpets, and we will speed the parting 
guest. Let her not stand upon the order of her going, 
but go at once: Give her jewels of silver and gold, and 
rejoice that she has departed. All hail, Disunion!" 2 

Such was the condition of affairs with respect to the 
controversy over slavery in Virginia in the fateful winter 

William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. Ill, p. 508. 
2 Thurlow Weed, Barnes, Vol. II, p. 305. 

225 



226 THE UNION THWARTS EFFORTS OF ABOLITIONISTS 

of 1860-61. For the maintenance of the institution stood 
the constitution and laws of the Union and the pledges 
of the Republican Party dominant in their administration. 
For the destruction of the institution stood the Aboli- 
tionists, a great fellowship, earnest and aggressive, but 
without official power in the National Government and 
relying upon disunion or a condition of civil war as the 
essential prerequisite to the accomplishment of their 
plans. 
James G. Blaine wrote : 

" But for the constant presence of National power and its 
constant exercise under the provisions of the constitution, 
the South would have no protection against anti-slavery 
assaults of the civilized world. Abolitionists from the 
very beginning of their energetic crusade against slavery 
had seen the constitution standing in their way, and with 
the unsparing severity of their logic had denounced it as 
1 a league with Hell and a covenant with Death."' 1 

The people of Virginia in like manner appreciated the 
situation. "What madness," wrote Madison, "in the 
South to look for greater safety in disunion! It would be 
worse than jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. 
It would be jumping into the fire from fear of the frying 
pan, i.e., Northern meddling with slavery." 2 

Governor McDowell, referring to slavery and disunion, 
said: 

"If gentlemen do not see or feel the evil of slavery 
whilst the Federal Union lasts, they will see and feel it 
when it is gone; they will see and suffer it then in a magni- 

x Twenty Years of Congress, Blaine, Vol. I, 176. 
2 Madison to Clay, Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, Colton, 
p. 365. 



VIEWS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS 227 

tude of desolating power to which 'the pestilence that 
walketh in darkness' would be a blessing." 

Referring to the protection afforded slavery by the 
Federal Constitution, he said: 

"Withdraw but the protecting energies of that instru- 
ment and be the associations into which we shall be thrown 
what they may — whether directed by judgment or caprice 
— our distinct character as a slaveholding people will 
still be left — we shall still hold a separate and adversary 
interest but hold it under circumstances of aggravated 
evil, as the existence of it will disqualify us for defense 
in the very degree in which it will expose us to foreign 
hostility and wrong." 1 

Robert E. Lee, referring to the same subject, wrote, 

"The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the 
acts of the North, as you say. I feel the aggression and 
am willing to take every proper step for redress. . . . 
But I can anticipate no greater calamity than a dissolu- 
tion of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all 
the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice 
everything, but honor, for its preservation." 2 

George W. Summers, speaking in the Virginia Con- 
vention of 1861, said: 

"What has Virginia to gain by secession and separate 
action? Nothing on the territorial question but lose 
everything. On the fugitive slave question, she could 
make no treaties with the North or with England. In 
relation to the institution of slavery, which I consider 
morally, socially and politically right, she will lose the 

^Virginia Slavery Debate, 1832, Speech of James McDowell, 
pp. 23-24. 

^Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, Long, p. 88. 



228 CIVIL WAR WOULD AID EMANCIPATION 

present protection and be exposed to border incursions 
from a foreign government." 1 

John S. Carlile, speaking in the same convention, said: 

" I have been a slaveholder from the time I've been able 
to buy a slave. I have been a slaveholder not by in- 
heritance but by purchase; and I believe that slavery is 
a social, political and religious blessing. . . . How long, 
if you were to dissolve this Union — if you were to sepa- 
rate the slaveholding from the non-slaveholding states, 
would African slavery have a foothold in this portion of 
the land? I venture the assertion that it would not exist 
in Virginia five years after the separation; and nowhere 
in the Southern States twenty years after. How could 
it maintain itself, with the whole civilized world, backed 
by what they call Ftheir' international law, arrayed for 
its ultimate extinction with this North, which is now 
bound to stand by us and to protect slavery, opposed to 
us? . . . And now, Mr. President! in the name of our 
illustrious dead, in the name of all the living, in the name 
of millions yet unborn, I protest against this wicked effort 
to destroy the fairest and freest government on the earth." 2 

It was under the reign of law and with the forces of the 
Union as its allies that the institution of slavery could 
meet with success, all assaults coming from beyond the 
states where it existed. Amid the clash of arms and with 
the Federal Government no longer protecting their rights, 
slaveholders were most open to successful attack and 
slavery most likely to receive its mortal blow. 

Wendell Phillips expressed the idea when he declared: 

"The storm which rocked the vessel of state almost to 
foundering snapped forever the chain of the French slave. 

^Richmond Dispatch, March 13, 1861. 

2 See Richmond Enquirer, March 11th, 1861. 



SECESSION NOT LOGICAL DEFENSE 229 

Look, too, at the history of the Mexican and South America 
emancipation and you will find that it was in every in- 
stance, I think, the child of convulsion. The hour will 
come — God hasten it! — when the American people shall 
so stand on the deck of their Union — 'built i' th' eclipse, 
and rigged with curses dark.' If I live to see the hour I 
shall say to every slave, ' Strike now for Freedom.' "» 

It would seem most unreasonable and illogical to suppose 
that the people of Virginia turned to secession and civil 
war from a selfish desire to safeguard slavery from the 
attacks of the Abolitionists. Such a course augmented 
rather than lessened the dangers which beset the institution. 

If, however, worn out with the assaults upon their 
constitutional rights and wounded in their pride by the 
fierce arraignments of their character and civilization, 
they turned to separation as a means of preserving their 
self-respect and as showing a determination to live no 
longer in political association with their enemies, then 
their action becomes intelligible — whatever may be the 
judgment as to the just proportion between the wrongs 
complained of and the remedy proposed. 

1 Speeches, Lectures and Letters, Wendell Phillips, Lee & Shepard, 
1892, p. 85. 



XXXIII 

The Emancipation Proclamations and the 
Virginia People 

Our review of the record of the Federal Government 
with respect to slavery and the attitude of the Republican 
Party, which had just assumed control of its Executive and 
Legislative Departments, in regard thereto, is sufficient to 
demonstrate that, at the time Virginia seceded, she could 
not have been actuated by a selfish desire to defend the 
institution against the hostile power of the Nation. There 
was no rallying of the people of Virginia to resist a threat- 
ened edict of emancipation because no such proclamation 
had ever been suggested. As we shall see, the proclamation 
which aroused them to arms was the call of President Lin- 
coln for seventy-five thousand men to re-establish the 
authority of the National Government in the Southern 
Confederacy and the demand that Virginia should furnish 
her quota of soldiers for the momentous undertaking. 
Virginia, denying the right of the Federal Government 
to enter upon this policy of armed coercion, withdrew from 
the Union along with North Carolina, Tennessee and 
Arkansas. On this great issue the battle was joined and 
men by the thousands gave their lives to the rival claims 
of Home Rule versus National Supremacy. The war thus 
precipitated went onward with its terrible fruitage of death 
and destruction for nearly a year and a half when President 
Lincoln issued his first Proclamation of Emancipation. 
Could any change or attempted change, by the Federal 

230 



EFFECTS OF PROCLAMATIONS 231 

Government, of the motives for the struggle on the part of 
the Northern people change the motives which actuated the 
people of Virginia and shift for them the gage of battle? 
That the proclamations did not in fact convert the contest 
on the part of the Southern States from a war waged for 
their independence into one for the maintenance of slavery 
is manifest from the terms of the proclamations themselves 
and the unchanged attitude of the Southern people. The 
first proclamation threatened the emancipation of the 
slaves in states, or portions of states, which might still be 
found in arms against the Union one hundred days there- 
after, and exempted from emancipation slaves in states 
and portions of states which would surrender their battle 
for independence. Had the Federal Government offered 
to accord the Southern States their independence pro- 
vided they would abolish slavery then their rejection of 
such an offer and their continuance to do battle might have 
rendered them liable to the charge of fighting to maintain 
the institution. But the offer and threat presented just 
the other alternative and were alike unavailing to stop the 
struggle on the part of the Southern people. To quote 
the language of Mr. Lincoln: 

"After the commencement of hostilities, I struggled 
nearly a year and a half to get along without touching the 
institution, and when finally I conditionally determined 
to touch it, I gave a hundred days fair notice of my purpose 
to all the states and people within which time they could 
have turned it wholly aside by simply again becoming good 
citizens of the United States." 1 

In neither portion of Virginia — that in which emanci- 

*Letter of Lincoln to General McClernand, January 8th, 1863. 
Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H., Vol. 
II, p. 296. 



232 CONDITIONS WHICH PRECIPITATED WAR 

pation was decreed nor that in which slavery was to remain 
unaffected (a) did President Lincoln's proclamations pro- 
duce any change in the attitude of her people and this was 
so because, as they protested, slavery was neither the 
interest nor the issue which had impelled them to draw the 
sword. 

We would not, however, be understood as maintaining 
that slavery did not constitute the most potential factor 
in developing the conditions which finally precipitated the 
Civil War. The acrimonious discussions of thirty years, 
the conflicts over legislation, state and Federal, the crimina- 
tions and recriminations from pulpit, press and platform, 
found at length their baneful fruit in the destruction of 
tolerance, confidence and fraternity between the people 
of the two great sections. With hearts dissevered, the 
bonds of union were strained to the utmost, and when at 
length a sectional propaganda inaugurated by one great 
element of the Northern people scored a triumph at the 
polls, the people of the Cotton States sought in secession 
release from a political association which they regarded as 
repugnant to their feelings and subversive of their rights. 
But upon the issues thus made up Virginia refused to 
secede. It was after the secession of the Cotton States that 
the people of Virginia at their election February 4th, 1861, 
by a great majority still declared for union. Other and 
more fundamental causes for secession and conflict had to 
arise before Virginia could be driven to abandon the Union. 

a Note : The reader will recall that the proclamation did not 
emancipate the slaves in "the Counties of Berkeley, Accomac, 
Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne and Norfolk, 
including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth," nor those in the 
States of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, 
Tennessee and portions of Louisiana. 



CONDITIONS WHICH PRECIPITATED WAR 233 

Nor would we seek to maintain that an unconstitutional 
assault by the Federal Government or the Northern States 
upon the institution of slavery in Virginia would not have 
provoked and justified resistance. Such resistance, how- 
ever, could not fairly be imputed to a sordid and selfish 
desire to protect the institution. To repel invasion of 
constitutional rights is the highest duty of a free people. 
It is the right and principle involved, and not the incident 
or interest which occasioned the invasion, that determines 
the motive and character of the resistance. 

John Hampden and his compatriots resisted with arms 
what they regarded as the unconstitutional effort of their 
Sovereign to collect the " Ship Money" and yet it would be a 
most superficial and untruthful conception of their position 
to declare that they fought for the sum involved in the 
King's attempt. In the language of Edmund Burke in his 
great speech on taxing the American Colonies, "Would 
twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune? 
No! But the payment of half twenty shillings on the 
principle it was demanded would have made him a slave. " 



PART III 

VIRGINIA DID NOT SECEDE FROM A WANTON 

DESIRE TO DESTROY THE UNION OR 

FROM HOSTILITY TO THE IDEALS 

OF ITS FOUNDERS 



XXXIV 

Virginia's Part in the Revolution 

In considering the question whether Virginia, in trans- 
ferring her allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, was 
animated by a wanton desire to destroy the Union and 
defeat the ideals of its founders, it will assist to a more 
accurate conclusion if we review her part in the making of 
the Republic and the spirit which moved her people in the 
day of separation. If she had been conspicuous in the 
work of establishing the Union and in promoting its growth 
and glory, then it were more reasonable to ascribe her 
desire to terminate the association to convictions of duty 
than to motives capricious or selfish in their origin. If in 
the day of sectional strife, she pleaded for union and 
reconciliation, then her presence in the battle which fol- 
lowed was more justly attributed to the inexorable logic 
of events than to causes of her own initiation. 

It is well within the bounds of historic truth to say that 
Virginia had been pre-eminent among her sister states in 
fixing the ideals and founding the Republic; that, with 
unsurpassed devotion, she had contributed of men and 
treasure to promote its growth and enhance its glory; and 
that amid the strife and conflicts which preceded the Civil 
War, she stood a mediator between the hostile sections and 
an unwearied advocate of reconciliation and peace. 

In 1764, when the liberties of the American people were 
menaced by a Stamp Tax, Virginia was among the first of 
the colonies to memorialize the King in opposition, and the 

237 



238 RESISTANCE TO STAMP TAX 

only one to address to the House of Commons a remon- 
strance against the right of that body to enact such legis- 
lation. 1 

The Stamp Act caused great opposition throughout 
America. "But, " says John Fiske, "formal defiance came 
first from Virginia." 2 "The Assembly of Virginia," says 
J. R. Green, " was the first to formally deny the right of the 
British Parliament to meddle with internal taxation and to 
demand the repeal of the act." 3 

In 1765, her House of Burgesses, under the leadership 
of Patrick Henry, adopted her celebrated resolutions 
against the Stamp Tax. Only less important than the 
resolutions themselves was the thrilling arraignment of 
British usurpation and assaults upon the liberties of 
America with which the great orator aroused his country- 
men. "Thus," says Mr. Bancroft, "Virginia rang the 
alarm bell for the continent." 

In 1768, Virginia applauded Massachusetts for her stand; 
re-affirmed the position that Parliament had no right to 
tax the colonies; and directed that these resolutions of 
her House of Burgesses be communicated to all the colonies 
with the insistence that they should unite in opposition 
to every attempt of Great Britain to levy taxes upon the 
American people. 

In 1769, her House of Burgesses again asserted its 
position in a series of resolutions which Mr. Bancroft 
declares were "so calm in manner and so perfect in sub- 
stance that time finds no omission to regret, no improve- 
ment to suggest. The menace of arresting patriots lost 
its terror and Virginia's declaration and action consolidated 

history of the United States, Bancroft, Vol. Ill, p. 93. 

2 The American Revolution, Fiske, Vol. I, p. 18. 

3 A Short History of the English People, J. R. Green, 1883, p. 35. 



CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE COLONIES 239 

union." 1 Though dissolved by the Royal Governor 
because of this action, the members of the body immedi- 
ately assembled, and under the leadership of Washington, 
an agreement was entered into providing against the 
importation of goods from Great Britain until all uncon- 
stitutional acts should be repealed. 

Resistance to British tyranny continuing unabated, a 
yearning for union sprang up among all the colonies. 
"Whether that great idea/' says Mr. Bancroft, "should 
become a reality, rested on Virginia." 2 Her House of 
Burgesses assembled in March, 1773, when, under the 
leadership of Dabney Carr, Richard Henry Lee, and 
Patrick Henry, resolutions were adopted providing for a 
system of inter-colonial committees of correspondence. 
"Carr's plan," says Mr. Bancroft, "included a thorough 
union council throughout the land. If it should succeed 
and be adopted by the other colonies, America would 
stand before the world as a confederacy." Copies of 
these resolutions were sent to every colony, with the 
request that each would appoint a committee to com- 
municate from time to time with that of Virginia. "In 
this manner," says Mr. Bancroft, " Virginia laid the founda- 
tion of our Union." 3 

In May, 1774, the Virginia House of Burgesses by a 
resolution called upon their fellow-citizens to set apart 
the clay on which the act closing the port of Boston was to 
take effect: 

"As a day of fasting and prayer, devoutly to implore 
the divine interposition for averting the dreadful calamity 

^History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. Ill, p. 347. 
^History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. Ill, p. 436. 
Hdem, p. 437. 



240 THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 

which threatened destruction to their civil rights and the 
evils of a civil war, and to give to the American people 
one heart and one mind firmly to oppose, by all just and 
proper means, every injury to American rights." 

Upon the adoption of this resolution, the Royal Governor 
dissolved the Assembly, but the members immediately 
met and resolved "that an attack made on one of our 
sister colonies to compel submission to arbitrary taxes is 
an attack made on all British America, and threatens ruin to 
the rights of all unless the united wisdom of the whole be 
applied." 1 These sentiments of fraternity and union 
were re-echoed in the words of Washington: "I will raise 
one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and 
march at their head for the relief of Boston," a declaration 
soon followed by the march of Virginians under Daniel 
Morgan to the succor of that besieged city. 

Largely as a result of the committees of correspondence 
created under the Virginia resolutions, the Continental 
Congress assembled in Philadelphia in September, 1774. 
Virginia gave to that body its first president, in the person 
of Peyton Randolph, while Patrick Henry fired the hearts 
of its members with the spirit of nationalism by the declara- 
tion: "British oppression has effaced the boundaries of 
the several colonies. The distinctions between Virginians, 
Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are 
no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." 

Thus was launched the Revolution — a movement in 
which, Mr. Bancroft declares: "Virginia rose with as much 
unanimity as Connecticut or Massachusetts, and with 
more commanding resolution." 2 

It was Virginia that first, by formal resolution of her 

Hdem, Vol. IV, p. 17. 

2 History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 413. 



VIRGINIA AND THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 241 

Constitutional Convention, called on the Continental 
Congress to declare the colonies "free and independent 
states," absolved from all allegiance to the British crown. 
Richard Henry Lee submitted the motion to the Congress, 
and following its adoption, Thomas Jefferson wrote the 
Declaration of Independence. In the war which followed, 
Washington commanded the armies of the Revolution 
and by his incomparable qualities of leadership brought 
success to the cause. 

While bearing her part in maintaining the cause of 
the colonies in their struggle with the Mother Country, 
Virginia commissioned and equipped the expedition 
which under the leadership of her son, George Rogers 
Clark, conquered the empire of the northwest, an achieve- 
ment the very romance of daring and valor. Even more 
important to the cause of union than the conquest was 
Virginia's action in dedicating the territory to the new 
confederation, thus cementing the ties and interests of 
the separate colonies in a vast domain, the common 
property of the whole. 



XXXV 

Virginia's Part in Making the Union under the 
Constitution 

When the Revolution had finally triumphed in the battle 
fought out on her soil, Virginia statesmen were the first to 
realize the infirmities of the existing government and the 
need of a system more National in its ideals and powers. 

In 1786, her General Assembly adopted resolutions call- 
ing for a meeting of representatives from all the states 
to prepare such amendments to the Articles of Confedera- 
tion as would enlarge the powers of Congress over com- 
merce, — foreign and domestic. A delegation, with James 
Madison at its head, was appointed and the first Monday 
in September, 1786, fixed as the time, and Annapolis as 
the place, for the assembling of the convention. Repre- 
sentatives from only five states responded to Virginia's 
appeal, but they issued an address calling for a convention 
to assemble in Philadelphia on the second Monday in 
May, 1787, to devise such provisions as would " render the 
constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the 
exigencies of the Union." Despite the imminence of the 
dangers which threatened the country, and the manifest 
need of a stronger union, the Continental Congress at 
first refused its sanction to the movement; the Governor 
of New York denied the need of any action; and the 
Legislature of Massachusetts formally declined to appoint 
delegates to the convention. 1 

^History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 196. 

242 



EFFORTS TO STRENGTHEN UNION 243 

"From this state of despair," says Mr. Bancroft, "the 
country was lifted by Madison and Virginia. The recom- 
mendation of a plenipotentiary convention was well 
received by the Assembly of Virginia. . . . On the 
motion of Madison the Assembly gave its unanimous 
sanction to the recommendation from Annapolis." 1 

Continuing, Mr. Bancroft says : " We come now upon the 
week glorious for Virginia beyond any event in its annals 
or in the history of any former republic." 2 Without a 
dissenting voice, the General Assembly adopted a memorial 
approving the plan for the Philadelphia Convention, the 
spirit and purpose of which will appear from the following 
extract: 

"The General Assembly of this commonwealth, taking 
into view the situation of the confederacy as well as 
reflecting on the alarming representations made from 
time to time by the United States in Congress, particularly 
in their act of the 15th day of February last, can no longer 
doubt that the crisis is arrived at which the people of 
America are to decide the solemn question whether they 
will by wise and magnanimous efforts reap the fruits of 
independence and of union, or whether by giving way to 
unmanly jealousies and prejudices or to partial and transi- 
tory interests they will renounce the blessings prepared 
for them by the Revolution. The same noble and ex- 
tended policy, and the same fraternal and affectionate 
sentiments which originally determined the citizens of 
this commonwealth to unite with their brethren of the 
other states in establishing a Federal Government cannot 
but be felt with equal force now as motives to lay aside 
every inferior consideration, and to concur in such further 
concessions and provisions as may be necessary to secure 
the objects for which that Government was instituted, 

l Idem, p. 197. 

2 History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 197. 



244 WORK OF PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION 

and render the United States as happy in peace as they 
have been glorious in war." 1 

Following the adoption of the foregoing resolution, 
Virginia commissioned a delegation of her foremost men 
to represent her at Philadelphia; among them, George 
Washington, James Madison, George Mason, George 
Wythe, and Edmund Randolph. Under such inspiring 
leadership, opposition was allayed, and in the convention 
which followed, representatives finally gathered from every 
state except Rhode Island. 

Over this convention, George Washington was called to 
preside. Hesitancy and weakness were banished by his 
words : 

"It is too probable that no plan we propose will be 
adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sus- 
tained. If, to please the people, we are for what we our- 
selves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our 
work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and 
honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God." 2 

To the convention, Edmund Randolph, then Governor 
of the commonwealth, presented the "Virginia Plan," 
which, though amended in many important particulars, 
was the basis of our present constitution. The scheme 
of government offered by Governor Randolph was the 
work of James Madison, and because of his authorship 
and his great labors in connection with its final prepara- 
tion and adoption by the several states, he earned the 
high appellation of " Father of the Constitution." 

"The great mind of Madison," says John Fiske, "was 
one of the first to entertain distinctly the noble conception 

'Idem, p. 198. 

2 History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 210. 



ACHIEVEMENTS UNDER VIRGINIANS 245 

of two kinds of government, operating at one and the 
same time, upon the same individuals, harmonious with 
each other, but each supreme in its own sphere. Such 
is the fundamental conception of our partly Federal, 
partly National Government, which appears throughout 
the Virginia Plan, as well as in the constitution which 
grew out of it." 1 

Upon the adoption of the constitution and the creation 
of the office of President, George Washington was called 
to the discharge of its novel and important duties, and 
under his leadership, the Republic successfully met the 
difficulties and dangers of its new career. 

Only less important to the National life than the adminis- 
tration of Washington, was that of Jefferson who demon- 
strated by his rule that the ideals of liberty were not 
incompatible with the reign of law. Under his leadership 
the empire of Louisiana extending from the Gulf to the 
Canadian line was acquired, and the muniments of our 
title established by the explorations of Meriwether Lewis 
and William Clark, two more of Virginia's sons. 

Under President Madison, the second war with Great 
Britain was fought, which established the independence 
of America upon the seas. Under President Monroe, the 
territory of the Floridas was acquired, and the Doctrine 
promulgated under which two continents were dedicated to 
democratic development unawed by the governments of 
the Old World. 

Virginia gave to the Union John Marshall, "second to 
none among the most illustrious jurists of the English race, " 
according to John Fiske. For thirty-five years, the great 
Chief Justice presided over the Supreme Court, and by his 
decisions performed a work of incomparable importance in 

Critical Period of American History, Fiske, p. 239. 



246 VIRGINIA'S DEVOTION TO THE UNION 

establishing the position and power of that tribunal, and 
in welding in more indissoluble bonds the Union itself. 

Under President Tyler, the empire of Texas was brought 
into the Union. Scott and Taylor led the armies of the 
Republic in the war with Mexico, while associated with 
them was a brilliant group of younger Virginians, — Lee, 
Jackson, Johnston, Thomas, and others who, by their 
bravery and leadership, added fresh lustre to American 
arms. 

Where shall we look for the ideals of the Republic if not 
to the Declaration of Independence, the Ordinance of 1787, 
and the Constitution, great canons of liberty and union — 
with which the names of Virginia statesmen are pre- 
eminently associated? To these may be added Virginia's 
epoch-making Statute for Religious Freedom and her Bill 
of Rights, which latter is declared by Mr. Bancroft to be, 
"the groundwork of American institutions." 1 

While many of her sister states had surpassed Virginia 
in contributions to art, literature, and science, in com- 
mercial and industrial development, her triumphs had been 
in the realm of statecraft and jurisprudence, on the field 
of battle, and amid the dangers of the frontier. The 
achievements of her statesmen, jurists, soldiers and pioneers 
marked the measure of her pride and the summit of her 
fame. The making of the Union, maintaining its ideals, 
and extending its limits, were the noblest monuments of 
their labors. By statues and memorials, by song and 
story, by the lawmaker's work and the orator's appeal, 
Virginians of every generation were stimulated to revere 
the principles and safeguard the achievements of these 
illustrious men. 

^History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 416. 



VIRGINIA'S DEVOTION TO THE UNION 247 

With such a past, and with such a part in making the 
Union, will it be supposed that the Virginians of 1861 
pressed forward with wanton hands to destroy the fabric 
of the Republic and thwart the ideals of its founders? 
May we not believe that the true sentiments of the dominant 
element of the state were voiced in the words of John 
Janney, who, on assuming the Presidency of the Virginia 
Convention, in 1861, said: 

"Causes which have passed, and are daily passing 
into history, which will set its seal upon them, but which 
I do not mean to review, have brought the constitution 
and the Union into imminent peril, and Virginia has come 
to the rescue. It is what the whole country expected of 
her — her pride as well as her patriotism, her interest as 
well as her honor, called upon her with an emphasis she 
could not disregard to save the monuments of her own 
glory, "i 

1 Journal of Virginia Convention of 1861, p. 8. 



XXXVI 

Efforts to Promote Reconciliation and Union' 

As Virginia had borne a conspicuous part in founding 
the Union, so, when civil dissensions arose and its integrity 
was threatened, she was foremost in mediation. At no 
time were her efforts more earnest than in the troublous 
days of 1860-61. James Ford Rhodes says: "Virginia, 
whose share in forming the Union had been greater than 
that of any other one state, was loath to see that great work 
shattered, and now made a supreme effort to save it." 1 

Following the announcement of Mr. Lincoln's election, 
South Carolina seceded and in all the other Cotton States 
the manifestations of popular sentiment foreshadowed like 
action. The people of Virginia, though profoundly moved 
by the considerations which influenced their brethren of 
the far South, were yet opposed to secession, and proceeded 
to put forth every effort to avert war, and bring back the 
Cotton States to their former allegiance. 

On the 7th of January, 1861, her General Assembly was 
called in extra session. Governor Letcher's message set 
forth the dangers and problems which confronted the state 
and nation. " The condition of our country at this time, " 
he declared, "excites the most serious fears for the per- 
petuation of the Union. . . . Surely no people have been 
blessed as we have been, and it is melancholy to think that 
all is now about to be sacrificed on the Altar of Passion. 
If the judgments of men were consulted, if the admonitions 

1 History of United States, Rhodes, Vol. Ill, p. 290. 

248 



GOVERNOR LETCHER'S MESSAGE, 1861 249 

of their consciences were respected, the Union would yet 
be saved from overthrow." 

While thus expressing devotion to the Union, he yet pro- 
claimed his belief in the legal right of secession. He 
deplored the precipitate action of South Carolina, declaring 
that in a movement " involving consequences so serious to 
all the slaveholding states, no one state should have ven- 
tured to move without first having given timely notice to 
the others of her purpose." He reviewed at length the 
action of that great element of the Northern people, which, 
for years, had been unceasing in their assaults upon the 
constitutional rights of the South on the questions growing 
out of the existence of slavery. He alluded to the recent 
messages of the Governors of South Carolina and Mississippi 
in which the Border States were referred to in no over- 
friendly terms, and with suggestions of legislative enact- 
ments hostile to their interests. "While disavowing," he 
declared, "any unkind feeling toward South Carolina and 
Mississippi, I must still say that I will resist the coercion of 
Virginia in the adoption of a line of policy whenever the 
attempt is made by Northern or Southern States." He 
expressed his opposition to the plan for calling a state con- 
vention at that time, suggesting that instead the General 
Assembly should appoint commissioners to visit the Legis- 
latures of such Northern States as had passed laws repug- 
nant to the Federal Constitution, and respectfully urge their 
immediate repeal ; and that in like manner commissioners 
be sent to the Legislatures of the slaveholding states to 
ascertain the extent and character of their demands and 
the action deemed necessary for the protection of their 
rights and interests. 1 

1 Journal of Virginia House of Delegates, Extra Session, 1861, 
Document No. 1. 



250 ACTION OF VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE, 1861 

The General Assembly thereupon adopted a series of 
resolutions inviting all such states of the Union "as are 
willing to unite with Virginia in an earnest effort to adjust 
the present unhappy controversies ... to appoint com- 
missioners to meet on the fourth day of February next, in 
the City of Washington, similar commissioners appointed 
by Virginia." The resolutions also provided for the 
immediate appointment of Ex-President John Tyler as a 
Commissioner to the President of the United States, and 
Judge John Robertson as a Commissioner to the State of 
South Carolina and to any other state that had seceded or 
might secede, to urge upon them to abstain from any and 
all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms between 
such states and the government of the United States, pend- 
ing the proceedings contemplated by the General Assembly 
of Virginia. 

Ex-President John Tyler, William C. Rives, Judge John 
W. Brokenbrough, George W. Summers and James A. Sed- 
don were appointed Commissioners from Virginia to the 
Washington Conference — which became known in history as 
the Peace Conference. 

The sentiments which prompted this movement are 
doubtless truly expressed in the preamble to the resolutions 
which declares: 

" Whereas, it is the deliberate opinion of the General 
Assembly of Virginia that unless the unhappy controversy 
which now divides the states of this Confederacy shall be 
satisfactorily adjusted, a permanent dissolution of the 
Union is inevitable, and the General Assembly is desirous 
of employing every reasonable means to avert so dire a 
calamity," etc. 

Both Houses of the General Assembly, however, adopted 
by practically unanimous votes resolutions declaring that 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT WASHINGTON 251 

the Union, having been formed by the consent of the states, 
it was repugnant to Republican institutions to maintain it 
by force; that the government of the Union had no right 
to make war upon "any of the states which had been its 
constituent members"; and that with respect to states 
which have withdrawn or may withdraw from the Union, 
"we are unalterably opposed to any attempt on the part 
of the Federal Government to coerce the same into re- 
union or submission and that we will resist the same by all 
means in our power. m 

To the call of Virginia, twenty states responded; 'and 
their representatives met on the 4th day of February, 
1861, in the City of Washington. It was a notable gather- 
ing. Among the prominent members were William P. 
Fessenden and Lot M. Morrill, of Maine; George S. Bout- 
well and Charles Allen, of Massachusetts; David Dudley 
Field, Erastus Corning, William E. Dodge and General 
John E. Wool, of New York; Robert F. Stockton and 
Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; David Wilmot 
and A. W. Loomis of Pennsylvania; Reverdy Johnson, of 
Maryland; Thomas Ruffin and J. M. Morehead, of North 
Carolina; James Guthrie and Charles A. Wicliffe, of Ken- 
tucky; Salmon P. Chase, William S. Groesbeck and Thomas 
Ewing, of Ohio; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, and James 
Harlan, of Iowa. 

Mr. Rhodes says: "The historical significance of the 
Peace Convention consists in the evidence it affords of the 
attachment of the Border Slave States to the Union." 2 

•These resolutions were adopted in the House of Delegates by a 
vote of one hundred and twelve ayes to five noes. See Journal 
Virginia House of Delegates, Extra Session, 1861, p. 10. In the 
Senate only one vote was recorded against their adoption. 

2 History of United States, Rhodes, Vol. Ill, p. 307. 



252 VIEWS OF TYLER AND RIVES 

Some evidence of the spirit which animated the people 
of Virginia may be gathered from the speeches of her 
delegates. John Tyler, on assuming the Presidency of 
the body, spoke in part as follows : 

" The voice of Virginia has invited her co-states to meet 
her in council. In the initiation of this Government 
that same voice was heard and complied with, and the 
resulting seventy-odd years have fully attested the wisdom 
of the decision then adopted. Is the urgency of her call 
less great than it was then? Our God-like fathers created! 
We have to preserve. They have built up through their 
wisdom and patriotism monuments which have eternized 
their names. You have before you, gentlemen, a task 
equally grand, equally sublime, quite as full of glory and 
immortality; you have to snatch from ruin a grand and 
glorious Confederation, to preserve the Government and 
to renew and invigorate the constitution. If you reach 
the height of this great occasion your children's children 
will rise up and call you blessed." 1 

In the course of one of his speeches, Ex-Senator Rives 
said: 

" Mr. President, the position of Virginia must be under- 
stood and appreciated. She is just now the neutral 
ground between two embattled legions — between two 
angry, excited and hostile portions of the Union. Some- 
thing must be done to save the country, to allay these 
apprehensions, to restore a broken confidence. Virginia 
steps in to arrest the progress of the country on its way 
to ruin. . . . Sir, I have had some experience in revolu- 
tions in another hemisphere, in revolutions produced by 
the same causes that are now operating among us. . . . 
I have seen the pavements of Paris covered and the gutters 
running with fraternal blood. God forbid I should see 

1 Proceedings of Peace Convention, Crittenden, p. 14. 



OPPOSITION TO PEACE CONFERENCE 253 

this horrid picture repeated in my own country — and yet 
it will be, sir! if we listen to the counsel urged here." 1 

George W. Summers, another of the Virginia delegates, 
opened his speech to the conference in these words : 

"Mr. President! my heart is full! I cannot approach 
the great issues with which we are dealing, with becom- 
ing coolness and deliberation! Sir! I love this Union. 
The man does not live who entertains a higher respect for 
this government than I do. I know its history — I know 
how it was established. There is not an incident in its 
history that is not precious to me. I do not wish to survive 
its dissolution." 2 

In contrast to these pathetic appeals of Virginia's repre- 
sentatives were expressions coming from many of her 
sister states North and South. None of the seven Cotton 
States sent delegates to the convention. South Carolina 
declared that "the separation of that state was final and 
that she had no further interest in the constitution of the 
United States." 3 

The well-known letter of Senator Zachariah Chandler, of 
Michigan, written from Washington during the session of 
the convention to the] Governor of his state, is represen- 
tative of the spirit which dominated one element of the 
Northern people. 

Washington, February 11, 1861. 
My dear Governor: 

Governor Bingham and myself telegraphed you on 
Saturday, at the request of Massachusetts and New York, 
to send delegates to the Peace, or Compromise Congress. 
They admit that we were right and that they were wrong; 

Proceedings of Peace Convention, Crittenden, p. 135. 

2 Idem, p. 15. 

^Causes of Civil War, Chadwick, p. 270. 



254 OPPOSITION TO PEACE CONFERENCE 

that no Republican state should have sent delegates; but 
they are here and cannot get away. Ohio, Indiana, Rhode 
Island are caving in and there is danger of Illinois; and 
now they beg us, for God's sake, to come to their rescue 
and save the Republican Party from rupture. The whole 
thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice and 
will end in thin smoke. Still, I hope as a matter of courtesy 
to some of our erring brethren that you will send the 
delegates. 

Truly your friend, 

Z. Chandler. 
His Excellency, Austin Blair. 

P. S. Some of the manufacturing states think that a 
fight would be awful. Without a little blood-letting this 
Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush." 1 

The fact that the deliberations of the Peace Conference 
proved unavailing to arrest the movement towards dis- 
union and civil war is no indication that the motives 
which impelled the people of Virginia to call their country- 
men to council were not those of the highest patriotism. 

^Proceedings of Peace Convention, 1861, p. 468, Crittenden. 



XXXVII 

The People of Virginia Declare for Union 

The General Assembly which issued the call for the 
Peace Conference also adopted a joint resolution providing 
for a convention in Virginia to take under consideration 
the problems and dangers of the hour. By the terms of 
this act, the people of Virginia were to select delegates to 
the convention, and were to declare by a separate vote 
whether the action of that body should be binding upon 
the commonwealth, or whether it should be referred back 
to them for ratification or rejection. 

Under this call, the people of Virginia repaired to the 
polls on the 4th of February, 1861. Seldom, if ever, in 
her history had they been summoned to an election so 
fraught with importance to the state and the Union. 
The seven Cotton States had already seceded, and in not 
one where the question had been formally acted upon 
had there been a decision against secession. Only two 
days before, February 2d, the great State of Texas had 
withdrawn from the Union. Had Virginia at that critical 
moment declared for a like policy, it is almost certain 
that the remaining Southern States would have followed 
her example. In such an event, President Lincoln would 
on the day of his inauguration have found the Capital of 
the Union encompassed by the States of Virginia and 
Maryland, both members of the new Confederation. 

With results so important and far reaching to the Union 
dependent upon her action, the election in Virginia was 

255 



256 UNION VICTORY IN VIRGINIA, 1861 

held. Opposing candidates presented themselves for the 
suffrages of the people in each of the one hundred and 
fifty-two districts; unconditional Secessionists, uncondi- 
tional Union men and men opposed to secession and favor- 
able to the Union, provided the authorities of the latter 
did not resort to force to bring back the states which had 
seceded. From the Ohio River to the sea, from North 
Carolina to the Pennsylvania line, the people of the com- 
monwealth were stirred by the fervor of the campaign 
and the magnitude of the issues upon which they were 
called to pass. 

The returns from the ballot box showed that a large 
majority of the delegates elected were opposed to Virginia's 
secession, and by a vote of 100,536 to 45,161, the people 
commanded that the findings of the Convention should 
be submitted to them for ratification or rejection. 

The result of this election was not only of the greatest 
importance to the Union, but it was a formal declaration 
to the world that Virginia, on the issues as then made up, 
refused to secede. 

"Thus be it always remembered," says Charles Francis 
Adams, "Virginia did not take its place in the secession 
movement because of the election of an anti-slavery 
President. It did not raise its hand against the National 
Government from mere love of any peculiar institution, 
or a wish to protect or perpetuate it. It refused to be 
precipitated into a civil convulsion; and its refusal was 
of vital moment. The ground of Virginia's final action 
was of wholly another nature, and of a nature far more 
creditable." 1 

The importance of Virginia's position was well ap- 
preciated, both by the friends of the Union and by the 

x Lee at Appomattox and other Papers, Adams, p. 403. 



EFFECTS OF UNION VICTORY IN VIRGINIA 257 

advocates of secession. On the day before the election, 
William H. Seward wrote from Washington: "The elec- 
tion to-morrow probably determines whether all the slave 
states will take the attitude of disunion. Everybody 
around me thinks that that will make the separation 
irretrievable and involve us in a flagrant civil war. Prac- 
tically everybody will despair." A day or two later, he 
wrote that the result of the Virginia election had come 
"like a gleam of sunshine in a storm," and that "at least 
the danger of conflict, here or elsewhere, before the 4th 
of March has been averted." 1 

Charles Francis Adams has placed upon record the 
impressions of the hour. 

"Though over forty years ago, I well remember that 
day — gray, overcast, wintry — which succeeded the Vir- 
ginia election. Then living in Boston, a young man of 
twenty-five, I shared — as who did not — in the common 
deep depression and intense anxiety." 

After describing the first receipt of news from the 
election, Mr. Adams adds: "Virginia, speaking against 
secession, had emitted no uncertain sound. It was as if 
a weight had been taken off the mind of every one. The 
tide seemed turned at last." 2 

James Ford Rhodes says: 

"The election in Virginia for members of her State 
Convention had much significance. The one hundred and 
fifty-two delegates chosen were, with substantial correct- 
ness, classed as thirty so-called Secessionists, twenty 
Douglas men and one hundred and two Whigs, which 
proves, asserted the Richmond Whig, a journal which 

l Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers, Adams, p. 403. 
Hdem, p. 402. 



258 LEADERS IN VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1861 

argued strenuously for delay, that 'the Conservative 
victory in Virginia is perfectly overwhelming/ the pre- 
cipitators having sustained { a Waterloo defeat.' "* 

The Convention assembled the 13th of February, and 
the friends of the Union elected to its presidency the 
venerable John Janney. The spirit and purpose of this 
dominant element may be gathered from a few extracts 
in the speech of President Janney, on assuming his position : 

"It is now seventy-three years since a convention of 
the people of Virginia was assembled in this hall to ratify 
the constitution of the United States, one of the chief 
objects of which was to consolidate — not the government 
but the union of the states. Causes which have passed, 
and are daily passing, into history which will set its seal 
upon them, but which I do not mean to review, have 
brought the constitution and the Union into imminent 
peril, and Virginia has come to the rescue. It is what the 
whole country expected of her. Her pride, as well as her 
patriotism; her interest, as well as her honor, called upon 
her with an emphasis she could not disregard, to save 
the monuments of her own glory. . . . 

"Gentlemen, there is a flag which for nearly a century 
has been borne in triumph through the battle and the 
breeze and which now floats over this Capitol, on which 
there is a star representing this ancient commonwealth, 
and my earnest prayer, in which I know every member 
of this body will cordially unite, is that it may remain 
there forever, provided always that its lustre is untar- 
nished. ... Is it too much to hope that we, and others 
who are engaged in the work of peace and conciliation, 
may so solve the problems which now perplex us as to win 
back our sisters of the South, who, for what they deem 
sufficient cause, have wandered from their old orbits?" 2 

i History of United States, Rhodes, Vol. Ill, p. 309. 
'Journal of Virginia Convention, 1861, p. 8. 



QUESTION OF COERCING COTTON STATES 259 

From the day of its opening session down to the 17th of 
April, the advocates of secession and union confronted 
each other in debate. Prominent among the Secessionists 
were Robert L. Montague, Lewis E. Harvie, James P. Hol- 
combe, John Goode and Jeremiah Morton. To this 
number should be added Ex-President John Tyler, who, 
upon the failure of the Peace Conference to accomplish 
its mission, advocated the secession of Virginia. 

Foremost among the Union men were John B. Baldwin, 
George W. Summers, Jubal A. Early, Alexander H. H. 
Stuart, John S. Carlile, Williams C. Wickham, and the 
President, John Janney. Among other prominent members 
of the Convention were William Ballard Preston, Henry A. 
Wise, Robert Y. Conrad, James C. Bruce, Eppa Hunton, 
Robert E. Scott, Allen T. Caperton, John Echols, Waitman 
T. Willey, George W. Randolph and William L. Goggin. 

The most potent factor in determining the action of the 
Convention would be the policy of the incoming Federal 
administration with respect to the states which had 
seceded. While a large majority of the Virginia people 
at the recent election had declared against the secession 
of their state, yet the organization of the Southern Con- 
federacy had precipitated a problem of extreme delicacy 
and danger. What would be the attitude of the Federal 
Government towards these states? If negotiations for 
their return proved unavailing, would they be permitted 
to enjoy in peace their new-found independence, or would 
the Federal Government seek to establish its supremacy 
over them by force of arms? 

Charles Francis Adams alluding to the crisis, says: "So 
now the issue shifted. It became a question not of slavery, 
or of the wisdom, or even the expediency of secession, 
but of the right of the National Government to coerce a 



260 QUESTION OF COERCING COTTON STATES 

sovereign state. This, at the time, was well understood." 1 
No one acquainted with the historic position of Virginia 
could doubt what her action would be if called to decide 
for or against coercion. Would the alternative be pre- 
sented? President Buchanan, while denying the con- 
stitutional right of secession, had submitted to Congress 
the problem of dealing with the states which had seceded 
and Congress had taken no action. What would be 
President Lincoln's position? To his forthcoming in- 
augural address, the country looked for a definite declara- 
tion of his policy and by that declaration the course of 
Virginia would be determined. 

l Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers, Adams, p. 404. 



PART IV 

THE ATTEMPT OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 

TO COERCE THE COTTON STATES— THE 

PROXIMATE CAUSE OF VIRGINIA'S 

SECESSION 



XXXVIII 

The Coercion of the Cotton States — Virginia's 
Position 

President Lincoln's first inaugural address may be 
safely reckoned among the most notable of American state 
papers,both for the purity of diction and the earnest patri- 
otism which pervade it. With a spirit of fraternalism 
appealing and pathetic, he called upon his countrymen to 
turn from discord and separation to a new lease of brother- 
hood and a revival of devotion to the Republic consecrated 
by the sacrifices and labors of their fathers. The address 
gave assurance that the Federal Government would respect 
the rights of the states and individuals in regard to slavery, 
and that no interest or section would be disturbed in any 
constitutional right by the incoming administration. Upon 
the great point, however, as to the policy of the Federal 
Government in regard to coercing the states which had 
seceded, the address was held by many to be fairly sus- 
ceptible of different constructions. Thus the President 
said: 

" I, therefore, consider that in view of the constitution 
and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of 
my ability I shall take care, as the constitution itself 
expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be 
faithfully executed in all the states. Doing this I deem 
to be a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far 
as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American 
People, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some 
authoritative manner direct the contrary." 

263 



264 PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 

It must be remembered that at the time these words were 
uttered the seven Cotton States had withdrawn from the 
Union; had organized the Southern Confederacy, and that 
in all the vast region from North Carolina to the Rio 
Grande, the Confederacy's authority was recognized, except 
at Fort Sumter and three or four like forts where the flag 
of the Union still waved. Mr. Lincoln's declaration, 
therefore, that these states were still in the Union and 
that he intended to enforce the execution of its laws 
within their borders was accepted in many quarters as 
avowing a purpose to coerce these states and their citizens 
into a recognition of its j urisdiction and authority. Against 
this construction should be placed other extracts from 
the address. Thus he said : 

" The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy 
and possess the property and places belonging to the 
Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but 
beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will 
be no invasion, no using of force, against or among the 
people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States 
in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as 
to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the 
Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious 
strangers among the people for that object. While the 
strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce 
the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would 
be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I 
deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such 
offices." 

The declarations of President Lincoln were received 
with strongly contrasted feelings by the three elements 
which constituted the membership of the Virginia Con- 
vention. The Secessionists hailed his position as fore- 
shadowing Federal coercion which in turn would compel 



VIEWS OF MEMBERS OF CONVENTION 265 

Virginia's withdrawal from the Union. The uncondi- 
tional Union men accepted his views as the logical and 
necessary avowals of his constitutional duty. The con- 
ditional Union men, while denying in a measure the 
correctness of his position, both from a constitutional 
and ethical standpoint, were yet gratified by the pacific 
spirit of his address. They counselled moderation on the 
part of the Convention and clung tenaciously to the hope 
that some adjustment might be perfected between the 
authorities of the Union and those of the seceded states 
and thus the alternative of submitting to coercion or 
seceding from the Union might never be presented to the 
people of Virginia. This last element held the balance of 
power in the Convention. As illustrating their position, 
it may be well to insert extracts from the speeches of a few 
of their representative men. 

James W. Sheffey, speaking five days before President 
Lincoln's inauguration, said: 

"We love the Union, but we cannot see it maintained 
by force. They say the Union must be preserved — she 
can only be preserved through fraternal affection. We 
must take our place — we can't remain neutral. If it comes 
to this and they put the question of trying force on the 
states which have seceded, we must go out. . . . We are 
waiting to see what will be defined coercion. We wait 
to see what action the new President will take." 1 

George Baylor, speaking three days before President 
Lincoln's inauguration, said: " Secession is not a con- 
stitutional measure; even if it were, we should delay 
before using it. Let us stay in the Union where we have 
always been. Yet, I am opposed to coercion." 2 

^ee Richmond Enquirer, February 28th, 1861. 
2 See Richmond Enquirer, March 2d, 1861. 



266 VIEWS OF MEMBERS OF CONVENTION 

Thomas Branch, speaking the day after President Lin- 
coln's inaugural address, said: 

" My heart has been saddened and every patriotic heart 
should be saddened, and every Christian voice raised to 
heaven in this time of our trial. After the reception of 
Mr. Lincoln's inaugural, I saw some gentlemen rejoicing 
in the hotels. Rejoicing for what, sir? For plunging 
ourselves and our families, our wives and children in 
civil war? I pray that I may never rejoice at such a 
state of things. I pray that I may never have to march 
to battle to front my enemies. But I came here to defend 
the rights of Virginia and I mean to do it at all hazards; 
and if we must go to meet our enemies, I wish to go with 
the same deliberation, with the same solemnity that I 
would bend the knee in prayer before Almighty God." 1 

Jubal A. Early, speaking on the same day, said: 

" I do not approve of the inaugural of Mr. Lincoln and 
I did not expect to be able to endorse his policy and I 
did not think there was a member of this Convention 
who expected to endorse it; but, sir, I ask the gentleman 
from Halifax and the gentleman from Prince Edward, 
if it were not for the fact that six or seven states of this 
Confederacy have seceded from this Union, if the declara- 
tions of President Lincoln that he would execute the laws 
in all the states would not have been hailed throughout 
the country as a guarantee that he would perform his 
duty, and that we should have peace and protection for 
our property and that the Fugitive Slave Law would be 
faithfully executed? I ask why is it that we are placed 
in this perilous condition? And if it is not solely from 
the action of these states that have seceded from the 
Union without having consulted our views?" 2 

George W. Brent, speaking on the 8th of March, said : 

'See Richmond Enquirer, March 7th, 1861. 
2 See Richmond Enquirer, March 7th, 1861, 



VIEWS OF A UNION LEADER 267 

"Abolitionism in the North, trained in the school of 
Garrison and Phillips, and affecting to regard the con- 
stitution as ' a league with Hell and a covenant with 
Death, ' has with a steady and untiring hate sought a 
disruption of this Union, as the best and surest means 
for the accomplishment of the abolition of slavery in the 
Southern States. . . . South Carolina and those leading 
statesmen of the South who have been educated in the 
philosophy of free trade have likewise with unwearied and 
constant assiduity pursued their schemes of disunion. 
Conscious of their inability to effect their schemes within 
the Union they have sought a disruption of the states. . . . 

"In these two schools of political philosophy, Mr. 
President, I trace all the evils and disastrous troubles 
which now afflict and disturb our beloved and unhappy 
land. . . . Recognizing as I have always done, the right 
of a state to secede, to judge of the violation of its rights 
and to appeal to its own mode for redress, I could not up- 
hold the Federal Government in any attempt to coerce 
the seceded states to bring them back in the Union/' 1 

The foregoing extracts give some fairly accurate idea 
of the position of those members of the Convention, who, 
though looked upon as Union men, yet, when the final 
test came after President Lincoln called for troops, voted 
for secession. How close in sympathy with this element 
were many of the Union men will appear from the follow- 
ing extract from a speech of George W. Summers, who 
upon the final ballot still voted against secession: 

"Where would be the wisdom of passing an ordinance 
of secession in the face of the known sentiment of a Vir- 
ginia constituency ? The people do not mean to adopt 
such an ordinance until every available measure of adjust- 
ment has been exhausted. Come on then with your plans; 
and when all fail, the people of the commonwealth will be 

'See Richmond Enquirer, March 9th, 1861. 



268 VIEWS OF A UNION LEADER 

united from one end to the other. ... No enlightened 
statesmanship can compare the secession of states by 
conventional authority with insurrectionary movements in 
former times. It is a new and unlooked for condition of 
things. I am in favor of letting the seceded states alone. 
The last news gives encouragement to the hope that the 
troops will soon be withdrawn from Fort Sumter, and time 
will bring back the states into the common family. It 
is the duty of Virginia to stand by the Union until the 
performance of that duty becomes impossible." 1 

Richmond Dispatch, March 13th, 1861. 



XXXIX 

The Contest in the Virginia Convention for and 
against Secession 

For nearly a month and a half after President Lincoln's 
inauguration, the struggle in the Virginia Convention 
between the advocates and opponents of secession con- 
tinued — a contest in which the champions of opposing 
sides living beyond the state sought to make their in- 
fluence effective. Mr. Rhodes says: "It is easy to under- 
stand why both Davis and Lincoln were so anxious for 
the adhesion of Virginia. Her worth was measured by 
the quality as well as the number of her men." 1 

Henry Wilson records in his Rise and Fall of the Slave 
Power in America: 

"There was no state concerning whose course there 
was greater doubt or more anxious solicitude than Virginia. 
Her size, position, traditional influence and past leader- 
ship, with the knowledge that in whichever side of the 
scale her great weight should be thrown, the fortunes 
of the threatened conflict would be seriously affected 
thereby, intensified the anxiety felt." 2 

Commissioners from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana 
appeared before the Convention on different occasions, 
and with impassioned eloquence, appealed to Virginia to 
stand with her sisters of the South. 

l History of United States, Rhodes, Vol. Ill, p. 462. 
2 The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Wilson, Vol. 
Ill, p. 138. 

269 



270 COERCION THE PIVOTAL FACT 

Mr. Lincoln's efforts were directed through prominent 
Union members of the Convention. His great object was 
to secure an adjournment sine die of that body, without 
the adoption of an ordinance of secession, and without 
the assurance on his part that no attempt would be made 
to coerce the Cotton States. John B. Baldwin, a leading 
Union man in the Convention, was one of its members 
brought into conference with Mr. Lincoln. On the 6th of 
April, 1861, Mr. Baldwin went to the White House, where, 
in response to the President's inquiries, he presented 
the attitude of the dominant element of the Virginia 
Convention, and heard the President's appeals and reason- 
ings why that body should immediately adjourn. Mr. 
Baldwin urged upon Mr. Lincoln the wisdom and necessity 
of proclaiming to the world that the Federal Government 
had no intention of coercing the Cotton States: "Only 
give this assurance," said Mr. Baldwin, "to the country 
in a proclamation of five lines, and we pledge ourselves 
that Virginia will stand by you as though you were our 
own Washington." 1 

How pivotal was the position of the Federal Government 
with reference to coercion as determining Virginia's action 
may be gathered not only from the speeches of the members 
of her Convention, but from other utterances made at the 
time by her leading men. 

Matthew F. Maury, under date of March 4th, 
1861, wrote: "Virginia is not at all ready to go 
out of this Union; and she is not going out for 
anything that is likely to occur, short of coercion — such 
is my opinion." 2 

Colonel Baldwin's Interview with Mr. Lincoln, Dabney. Sotith- 
ern Historical Papers, Vol. 1, p. 449. 

2 Life of Matthew F. Maury, Corbin, p. 186. 



POSITION OF THE CONVENTION 271 

George W. Summers, under date of March 19th, 1861, 
wrote from Richmond: 

" The removal from Fort Sumter (alluding to the report 
that it would be evacuated) acted like a charm — it gave 
us great strength. A reaction is going on in this state. 
The outside pressure here has greatly subsided. We are 
masters of our position here, and can maintain it, if left 
alone." 

The same day he wrote: "What delays the removal of 
Major Anderson (the officer in charge of Fort Sumter)? 
Is there any truth in the suggestion that the thing is not 
to be done after all? This would ruin us." 1 

A fairly accurate estimate of the position of the Virginia 
Convention may be gathered from the report of its Com- 
mittee on Federal Relations, and the tentative action of 
that body with respect to the same. Soon after the 
organization of the Convention, this committee, consisting 
of twenty-one members, was appointed, and a rule adopted 
by which all memorials and proposals relating to the 
secession of the state, or any of the many questions involved 
in the pending controversies, should be referred to this 
committee without debate. 

On the 16th of March, the report of the committee was 
taken up for consideration in the Committee of the Whole 
Convention. The majority report embodied the views 
of some two-thirds of the membership of the committee. 
There were several individual reports, but the views of the 
minority were expressed in the report signed by Messrs. 
Montague, Harvie and Williams, which simply recom- 
mended the immediate adoption of an ordinance providing 
for the secession of the state. 

l History of United States, Rhodes, Vol. Ill, p. 345. 



272 CONVENTION DEFEATS SECESSION 

The report of the majority consisted of fourteen sections, 
and with it was submitted an amendment to the con- 
stitution of the United States, which the states of the 
Union were requested to endorse and make it a part of 
that instrument. The discussion with respect to this 
report and the amendment so proposed, continued from 
the 16th of March to the 15th of April, when before final 
and complete action by the Convention, the secession of 
the state was precipitated, under the conditions here- 
after described. 

The report of the majority is a lengthy document setting 
forth the attitude of Virginia with respect to the character 
of the Federal Government — the rights and powers of 
the latter in the territories, and over the forts, arsenals, 
etc. — in the states which had seceded, and all the many 
questions growing out of the contest over slavery. 

The maintenance of peace was declared to be the fore- 
most duty of the hour. " Above all things, at this time, 
they esteem it of indispensable necessity to maintain the 
peace of the country, and to avoid everything calculated 
or tending to produce collision and bloodshed," said the 
report. 

The sixth section of the report deplored the present 
"distracted condition of the country," and expressed the 
earnest hope, "That an adjustment may be reached, by 
which the Union may be preserved in its integrity'; and 
peace, prosperity and fraternal feeling be restored through- 
out the land." 

To this section the report of the minority, providing 
for Virginia's immediate secession, was offered as a sub- 
stitute; and on the 4th of April the latter was voted down 
by a recorded vote of forty-five "Yeas" to eighty-nine 
"Nays," and the section as reported by the majority 



AMENDMENT PROPOSED TO CONSTITUTION 273 

adopted by a vote of one hundred and four "Yeas" to 
thirty-one "Nays." 1 
The eighth section declared: 

"The people of Virginia recognize the American prin- 
ciple, that government is founded in the consent of the 
governed . . . and they will never consent that the Federal 
power, which is in part their power, shall be exerted for 
the purpose of subjugating the people of such states (the 
seceded states) to the Federal authority." 

By the eleventh section appeal is made to the states 
to make response to the position assumed in the resolu- 
tions and the proposed amendment to the constitution 
of the United States, and the warning given that unless 
satisfactory assurances were forthcoming, Virginia would 
feel compelled to resume the powers granted by her under 
the constitution. Time and again the report declares 
that "any action of the Federal Government tending to 
produce collision of forces," or any such action on the part 
of the seceded or confederated states, would be deemed 
offensive to the state, and greatly to be deplored. 

Accompanying this report, as above indicated, was 
an amendment to the constitution of the United States, 
the most important features of which dealt with the 
matter of slavery in the territories, and the institution in 
the states where it was established by law. 

With respect to the first, the amendment provided that 
in all the territories north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes, 
slavery should be forever prohibited, and in all the terri- 
tory south of that line, slavery was to be permitted; any 
territory, however, south of that line to have the privilege 

^Journal of the Committee of the Whole, Virginia Convention, 1861, 
pp. 31-43. 



274 PURPORT OF PROPOSED AMENDMENT 

to permit or deny slavery by its constitution adopted pre- 
liminary to its admission as a state into the Union. 

The amendment also provided that no territory should 
thereafter be acquired by the United States except for 
naval and other like depots, without the concurrence of a 
majority of the Senators from the states which "allowed 
involuntary servitude and a majority of the Senators from 
the states which prohibited that relation." 

The amendment further provided that Congress should 
never have the power to abolish slavery in the states 
where it existed, nor in the District of Columbia without 
the consent of Maryland and Virginia. The slave trade 
in the District of Columbia and the foreign slave trade 
were forever prohibited, as was also the custom of bringing 
slaves into the District of Columbia for the purpose of 
their sale or distribution to other parts of the country. 
Congress should provide for the payment to the owner 
for any fugitive slave whose return was prevented by 
mobs or intimidation, after his arrest; and the elective 
franchise and the right to hold office were not to be ac- 
corded persons of the African race. 1 

While no final action had been taken upon this report, 
with the accompanying amendment, by the Convention 
at the time of Virginia's secession, yet the votes taken 
in the Committee of the Whole on the various paragraphs 
of the report indicated that had not Virginia's secession 
been precipitated, the report would have been adopted 
by the body in substantially the form in which it came 
from the Committee on Federal Relations. 

What would have been the attitude of the other states 

'See Report of the Committee on Federal Relations, with ac- 
companying exhibits in the Appendix of the Journal of the Virginia 
Convention, 1861. 



FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND COERCION 275 

to the amendment to the constitution so proposed, must, 
of course, be a matter of conjecture, but the adoption by 
Congress, though controlled by the Republican Party, of 
the joint resolution providing for an amendment which 
should forever prohibit Congress from interfering with 
slavery in the states where it existed, and the enactment 
of the statute organizing the territories of Dakota, Colorado 
and Nevada without prohibition as to slavery, would seem 
to indicate that the principal provisions of the amendment 
proposed by Virginia would have met the approval of the 
requisite number of the states. 

As above indicated, the crucial point, with the group 
holding the balance of power in the Convention, was the 
position of the Federal Government upon the question of 
coercing the Cotton States. The employment of force 
to compel three millions of people to submit to a govern- 
ment not of their own choice, was at war with the Declara- 
tion of Independence and repugnant to thousands of the 
American people North as well as South. That the 
Federal Government would have been sustained in a bald 
invasion of the Southern States, may well be questioned. 
The situation, however, was not quite so embarrassing 
for the Government. Many of these states had formally 
ceded to the Union jurisdiction over parcels of land within 
their respective limits, upon which had been erected 
forts, post offices or custom houses. These constituted 
coigns of vantage, where the rights of the Federal Govern- 
ment were of a dignity higher, or at least more manifest, 
to the popular mind, than those rights which obtained 
over the whole area of the states or their citizens. Thus 
in the great drama of diplomacy and play for position 
which preceded the Civil War, the rights of the nation 
and of the states in these forts and buildings became 



276 FORT SUMTER AND ITS OCCUPATION 

matters of imminent moment. When South Carolina 
seceded, Fort Moultrie was occupied by Federal soldiers. 
She appointed commissioners to negotiate with the authori- 
ties at Washington for the withdrawal of the troops, and 
the settlement of all questions with respect to the fort 
and other like properties in the state. Later these troops 
were transferred by the Federal authorities to Fort Sumter. 
Upon the organization of the Southern Confederacy, com- 
missioners from it were substituted for those appointed 
by South Carolina. President Lincoln refused to recognize 
the Southern Confederacy, or to treat with its repre- 
sentatives. Negotiations, however, semi-official in char- 
acter, were instituted, and upon the reports which went 
out from these conferences men gauged the chances of 
peace or war. If Fort Sumter were evacuated, the pros- 
pects of peace would be enhanced. If the Federal Govern- 
ment should decide to hold the fort, and provision and 
strengthen its garrison, then war would be imminent. 
Upon these contingencies, stocks rose and fell, and the 
friends of peace took hope or lost heart. 



XL 

The Contest in the Virginia Convention for and 
against Secession (Concluded) 

On the 8th of April, the Virginia Convention adopted 
the following resolution : 

"WHEREAS, in the opinion of this Convention the 
uncertainty which prevails in the public mind as to the 
policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue 
towards the seceded states is extremely injurious to the 
industrial and commercial interests of the country, tends 
to keep up an excitement which is unfavorable to the 
adjustment of pending difficulties, and threatens a dis- 
turbance of the public peace; therefore, 

" RESOLVED, That a committee of three delegates be 
appointed by this Convention to wait upon the President 
of the United States and present to him this Preamble 
and Resolution, and respectfully ask him to communicate 
to this Convention the policy which the Federal Executive 
intends to pursue in regard to the Confederate States." 1 

William Ballard Preston, Alexander H. H. Stuart and 
George W. Randolph were unanimously elected members 
of the committee thus created. 

That this action of the Virginia Convention was not 
hypercritical, that grave doubts actually existed as to the 
position of the Federal Government, is a fact of con- 
temporary history. Writing from Washington, March 16, 
1861, to Ex-President Buchanan, Edwin M. Stanton said: 

1 Journal of Virginia Convention, 1861, p. 143. 
277 



278 LINCOLN'S REPLY TO CONVENTION 

" Every day affords proof of the absence of any settled 
policy or harmonious concert of action in the Administra- 
tion. Seward, Bates and Cameron form one wing; Chase, 
Welles, Blair, the opposite wing; Smith is on both sides 
and Lincoln sometimes on one, sometimes on the other. 
There has been agreement in nothing," 1 

W. H. Russell, the well-known correspondent of the 
London Times, notes in his diary under date of March 
23d: "The Government (of the United States) appears to 
be helplessly drifting with the current of events, having 
neither bow nor stern, neither keel nor deck, neither 
rudder, compass, sails nor steam." 2 

On the 1st of April, Secretary Seward presented to the 
President his now famous memorandum, "Some thoughts 
for the President's consideration," the opening paragraph 
of which recited: " First. We are at the end of a month's 
administration, and yet without a policy either foreign 
or domestic." 3 

On the 15th of April, the Committee of the Virginia 
Convention appointed to wait on the President submitted 
its report. It recited that because of violent and pro- 
tracted storms they had not reached Washington until 
the 12th; that agreeable to the wishes of the President 
they appeared before him on the 13th and presented 
the resolution; and that the President thereupon read to 
them a paper which embodied his response to the 
Convention. 

In his reply, Mr. Lincoln stated that having, in his 
inaugural address, defined his intended policy, it was 

l Life of James Buchanan, Curtis, Vol. II, p. 534. 
2 My Diary, North and South, Russell, Vol. I, p. 37. 
3 Speeches, Letters and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, N. & H., 
Vol. II, p. 29. 



THE PRESIDENT'S CALL FOR TROOPS 279 

with deep regret and some mortification that he now 
learned that there was great and injurious uncertainty 
as to what that policy was; he commended a careful con- 
sideration of the document as the best expression he could 
give of his purpose. Continuing, he said : 

"As I then and therein said, I now repeat, 'The power 
confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess 
the property and places belonging to the Government 
and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what 
is necessary for these objects there will be no invasion, no 
using of force against or among the people anywhere.' " 

Continuing, the President said: 

" But if, as now appears to be true, in pursuance of a 
purpose to drive the United States authority from these 
places an unprovoked assault has been made upon Fort 
Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to repossess if I can 
like places which had been seized before the Government 
was devolved upon me. 

" And, in any event, I shall to the extent of my ability 
repel force by force. 

"In case it proves true that Fort Sumter has been 
assaulted as reported, I shall perhaps cause the United 
States mails to be withdrawn from all the states which 
claim to have seceded, believing that the commencement 
of actual war against the Government justifies and possibly 
demands it." 1 

What effect this reply of the President would have had 
upon the Virginia Convention it is impossible to say, for 
on the day of its presentation to that body came the news 
of his proclamation calling for an army of seventy-five 
thousand men. 

The proclamation recited that the laws of the United 

1 Journal of Virginia Convention, 1861, Document No. XVII. 



280 THE CONFLICT AT FORT SUMTER 

States were opposed and their execution obstructed in 
the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, 
Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, "by combinations" 
too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of 
judicial proceedings. 

The militia thus called for was apportioned among the 
several states (except the seven forming the Southern 
Confederacy) and their governors were requested to furnish 
forthwith their respective quotas. Despite the some- 
what ambiguous character of this proclamation, men 
everywhere believed that the attempt was now to be made 
to re-establish by force of arms the supremacy of the 
National Government over the states of the Southern 
Confederacy, and that to every commonwealth was pre- 
sented the solemn alternative of bearing a part for or 
against this movement. 

President Lincoln justified the immediate issuance of his 
proclamation because of what he termed the unprovoked 
attack on Fort Sumter and the wanton insult thus offered 
the honor and dignity of the nation. On the other hand, 
it was insisted that his action in breaking off the negotia- 
tions, having for their object the peaceful adjustment of 
all questions relating to Fort Sumter, his notice to the 
Governor of South Carolina that its garrison would be 
provisioned, and the arrival off the harbor of Charleston 
of the Relief Squadron charged with that mission, not only 
precipitated the conflict, but justified the inauguration 
by the Southern Confederacy of what would have been, 
under other circumstances, offensive measures. Had the 
authorities of the Confederacy been more thoughtful of 
their interests than their rights, or taken counsel of their 
caution rather than of their courage, they might have 
permitted the naval expedition to provision Fort Sumter 



VIRGINIA'S SECESSION PRECIPITATED 281 

and reinforce its garrison with men and munitions of war. 
Such, however, was not the temper and fibre of that 
people. They met what they deemed a second invasion 
of their country just as they did four months before, when 
they fired upon the " Star of the West" in the first attempt 
to relieve the Fort. 

Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Con- 
federacy, in his work The War Between the States, presents 
the position of his Government with respect to the matter 
as follows : 

" I maintain that it (the war) was inaugurated and begun 
though no blow had been struck, when the hostile fleet, 
styled the 'Relief Squadron/ with eleven ships carrying 
two hundred and eighty-five guns and two thousand four 
hundred men, was sent out from New York and Norfolk, 
with orders from the authorities at Washington to re- 
inforce Fort Sumter, peaceably, if permitted, but forcibly, 
if they resist." 

The action of the Virginia Convention was quick and 
decisive. On the 17th of April, an ordinance was adopted 
providing for Virginia's secession from the Union and 
submitting this action of the Convention to the people 
for ratification or rejection at a special election to be 
held on the 23d of May. In the Convention the tentative 
ordinance was passed by a vote of eighty-eight ayes to 
fifty-five noes (nine not voting), and before the people 
a month later it was confirmed by a vote of 128,884 against 
32,134. Mr. Rhodes records that, in the concluding 
hours of the Convention, strong men spoke for or against 
secession, with sorrowful hearts and in voices trembling 
with emotion. 1 

^History of United States, Rhodes, Vol. Ill, p. 386. 



282 VIRGINIA'S SECESSION PRECIPITATED 

This action of the Convention was the logical and 
inevitable result of the President's proclamation. There 
had never been any doubt as to Virginia's position. With 
all her loyalty to the Union, she had repeatedly declared 
in the most authoritative manner, her opposition to the 
coercion of the Cotton States and her determination to 
resist such a policy. 

To the requisition upon Virginia for her quota of troops 
Governor Letcher made reply to the Secretary of War: 

"I have only to say that the militia of Virginia will 
not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any 
such use or purpose as they have in view. Your object 
is to subjugate the Southern States and the requisition 
made upon me for such an object — an object in my judg- 
ment not within the purview of the constitution or the 
act of 1795, will not be complied with. You have chosen 
to inaugurate civil war; and having done so we will meet 
you in a spirit as determined as the Administration has 
exhibited toward the South." 1 

The Governors of Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Ten- 
nessee and North Carolina returned like answers to the 
requisitions of the Federal authorities for troops. 

Mr. Henderson, the English writer, in his work from 
which we have heretofore quoted, says with reference to 
Virginia's position : 

"So far Virginia had given no overt sign of sympathy 
with the revolution. But she was now called upon to 
furnish her quota of regiments for the Federal Army. To 
have acceded to the demands would have been to abjure 
the most cherished principles of her political existence. 
. . . Neutrality was impossible. She was bound to fur- 
nish her tale of troops and thus belie her principles; or 

^American Conflict, Greeley, Vol. I, p. 459. 



VIRGINIA'S SECESSION PRECIPITATED 283 

secede at once and reject, with a clean conscience, the 
President's mandate. If the morality of secession may 
be questioned, if South Carolina acted with undue haste 
and without sufficient provocation, if certain of the South- 
ern politicians desired emancipation for themselves, that 
they might continue to enslave others, it can hardly be 
denied that the action of Virginia was not only fully 
justified, but beyond suspicion. . . . " l 

1 Stonewall Jackson, Henderson, Vol. I, p. 122. 



XLI 

The Attempted Reinforcement of Fort Sumter 
and its Significance 

The relative responsibility for the collision at Fort 
Sumter we are not concerned to consider except in so far 
as it may have affected the action of Virginia in with- 
drawing from the Union. The charge is often heard, that, 
despite Virginia's professed love for the Union, and her 
efforts to maintain the peace, she made haste to unite 
her fortunes with the Southern Confederacy because of 
this assault by its soldiers upon Fort Sumter. It would 
seem a most illogical conclusion to all her unquestioned 
efforts if she were thus led to espouse the cause of the 
Confederacy and to gird herself for battle by reason of the 
happening of the very event she had striven so earnestly 
to avert. It was not the assault upon Fort Sumter, 
however momentous in its potency, which impelled 
Virginia, but the proclamation of President Lincoln which 
followed. The proclamation was the proximate cause of 
her secession, though her action was stimulated by the 
previous course of the Federal authorities with respect to 
the Fort. The people of Virginia regarded the policy of 
the Administration as characterized by a disregard for the 
peace of the country, a play for position ill-befitting a 
great nation at such a solemn crisis. Much has been 
written in defense of that policy. In support of Virginia's 
arraignment, the sentiments of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet 
ministers may be quoted. Three weeks previous to the 

284 



VIEWS OF CABINET 285 

issuance of the orders for the relief of Fort Sumter, five 
of its seven members recorded their opposition and the 
considerations of prudence and patriotism which im- 
pelled them to their position. 

On the 15th of March, 1861, President Lincoln sub- 
mitted the following request in writing to each member 
of his Cabinet : 

" My dear Sir: 

"Assuming it to be possible to now provision Fort 
Sumter, under all the circumstances is it wise to attempt 
it? Please give me your opinion in writing on this question. 

Your obedient servant, 
A. LINCOLN." 1 

Secretary Seward, in the course of an extended reply, 
wrote : 

" If it were possible to peaceably provision Fort Sumter, 
of course, I should answer that it would be both unwise 
and inhuman not to attempt it. But the facts of the 
case are known to be that the attempt must be made with 
the employment of military and marine force which 
would provoke combat and probably initiate a civil war 
which the Government of the United States would be 
committed to maintain, through all changes, to some 
definite conclusion." . . . 

Continuing, Mr. Seward said: 

"Suppose the expedition successful, we have then a 
garrison in Fort Sumter that can defy assault for six 
months. What is it to do then? Is it to make war by 
opening its batteries to demolish the defenses of the 
Carolinians? Can it demolish them if it tries? If it can- 
not, what is the advantage we shall have gained? If it 
can, how will it serve to check or prevent disunion? In 

1 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H., 
Vol. II, p. 11. 



286 VIEWS OF CABINET 

either case, it seems to me, that we will have inaugurated 
a civil war by our own act, without an adequate object, 
after which reunion will be hopeless, at least under this 
Administration or in any other way than by a popular 
disavowal both of the war and of the Administration 
which unnecessarily commenced it. Fraternity is the ele- 
ment of union; war the very element of disunion." . . . 

In conclusion, he said : " If this counsel seems to be im- 
passive and even unpatriotic, I console myself by the 
reflection that it is such as Chatham gave to his country 
under circumstances not widely different." 1 

Secretary Cameron wrote he would advise such action 
if he "did not believe the attempt to carry it into effect 
would initiate a bloody and protracted conflict." 2 

Secretary Welles wrote: 

" By sending or attempting to send provisions into Fort 
Sumter, will not war be precipitated? It may be impos- 
sible to escape it under any course of policy that may be 
pursued, but I am not prepared to advise a course that 
would provoke hostilities. ... I do not, therefore, under 
all the circumstances, think it wise to provision Fort 
Sumter." 3 

Secretary Smith wrote: 

" The commencement of civil war would be a calamity 
greatly to be deplored and should be avoided if the just 
authority of the Government may be maintained without 
it. If such a conflict should become inevitable, it is much 
better that it should commence by the resistance of the 
authorities or the people of South Carolina to the legal 

Hdem, pp. 11 and 14. 
2 Idem, p. 17. 

^Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H., 
Vol. II, p. 18. 



VIEWS OF CABINET 287 

action of the Government in enforcing the laws of the 
United States. . . . 

" If a conflict should be provoked by the attempt to 
reinforce Fort Sumter, a divided sentiment in the North 
would paralyze the arm of the Government, while the 
treason in the Southern States would be openly encouraged 
in the North. ... I, therefore, respectfully answer the 
inquiry of the President by saying that in my opinion it 
would not be wise, under all the circumstances, to attempt 
to provision Fort Sumter." 1 

Attorney General Bates wrote: 

"I am unwilling, under all the circumstances, at this 
moment, to do any act which may have the semblance 
before the world of beginning a civil war, the terrible 
consequence of which would, I think, find no parallel in 
modern times. . . . For these reasons, I am willing to 
evacuate Fort Sumter, rather than be an active party in 
the beginning of civil war.. . . . Upon the whole I do not 
think it wise now to attempt to provision Fort Sumter." 2 

Postmaster General Blair and Secretary Chase united 
in the opinion that it would be wise to make the effort to 
provision Fort Sumter. 

Mr. Blair wrote : 

"I believe that Fort Sumter may be provisioned and 
relieved by Captain Fox with but little risk; and General 
Scott's opinion that, with its war complement, there is 
no force in South Carolina which can take it, renders it 
almost certain that it will not then be attempted. This 
would completely demoralize the rebellion. . . . No ex- 
pense nor care should therefore be spared to achieve this 
success." 3 

l Idem, pp. 19 and 20. 
2 Idem, p. 22. 
s Idem, p. 21. 



288 VIEWS OF CABINET 

Secretary Chase wrote : 

"A correct solution must depend, in my judgment, on 
the degree of possibility, on the combination of reinforce- 
ment with provisioning and on the probable effects of the 
measure on the relations of the disaffected states to the 
National Government. 

" I shall assume what the statements of the distinguished 
officers consulted seem to warrant, that the possibility of 
success amounts to a reasonable degree of probability; 
and also that the attempt to provision is to include an 
attempt to reinforce; for it seems to be generally agreed 
that the provisioning without reinforcements notwith- 
standing hostile resistance, will accomplish no substantially 
beneficial purpose. 

"The probable political effects of the measure allow 
room for much fair difference of opinion, and I have not 
reached my own conclusion without much difficulty." 

The Secretary then proceded to declare, that, if such a 
step would produce civil war, he could not advise in its 
favor, but that, in his opinion, such a result was highly 
improbable, especially if accompanied by a proclamation 
from the President reiterating the sentiments of his in- 
augural address. "I, therefore," concluded Mr. Chase, 
"return an affirmative answer to the question submitted 
to me." 1 

It will be seen, from the foregoing extracts, that five of 
the seven members of the Cabinet concurred in the opinion 
that no attempt should be made to provision or reinforce 
Fort Sumter, and that such an attempt would in all proba- 
bility precipitate civil war. As Mr. Seward expressed it: 
"We will have inaugurated a civil war by our own act 
without an adequate object"; or in the language of Secre- 

1 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H.; 
Vol. II, pp. 14 and 15. 



RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE COLLISION 289 

tary Welles, " By sending or attempting to send provisions 
into Fort Sumter, will not war be precipitated? ... I 
am not prepared to advise a course that would provoke 
hostilities." 

If such were the opinions of leading members of President 
Lincoln's Cabinet, expressed in confidential communica- 
tions to their chief, as to the character of the proposed 
action, can it be deemed unreasonable that the people of 
Virginia held similar views? 

Fourteen days later, the President made a verbal request 
to his Cabinet for an additional expression of their views 
upon the same subject. Seward and Smith adhered to 
their former opinions. Chase and Blair were joined by 
Welles. Bates was noncommittal, and no reply was 
made by Cameron, so far as the records show. 

In the light of the facts and arguments presented by the 
members of the President's Cabinet, men, not a few, will 
conclude that, if the explosion occurred at Fort Sumter, 
the mine was laid at Washington.' 



XLII 

The Attempt to Coerce the Cotton States Impels 
Virginia's Secession 

James Ford Rhodes in his history of the United States, 
referring to the eventful year of 1861, says: 

" There were at this time in the Border States of Virginia, 
Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri unconditional Seces- 
sionists and unconditional Union men; but the great body 
of the people, although believing that the wrongs of the 
South were grievous and cried for redress, deemed seces- 
sion inexpedient. ... All denied either the right or the 
feasibility of coercion." 1 

What was the pith and potency of this anti-coercion 
sentiment among the people of Virginia? 

There were two distinct schools of thought and yet both 
denied the right of the Federal Government to coerce the 
people of the Cotton States. 

One school believed in the constitutional right of a state 
to secede: the Union was formed by the constitution — 
which was a compact between independent sovereignties; 
the powers of the Union were those and only those delegated 
to it by the states; the states never surrendered their 
sovereignty, nor their right to withdraw from the Union 
for what they deemed sufficient cause. This, in brief, 
was the position of the school which maintained the con- 
stitutional right of a state to secede. 

The other school while denying the constitutionality 

l History of the United States, Rhodes, Vol. Ill, p. 214. 
290 



ANTI-COERCION SENTIMENT IN VIRGINIA 291 

of secession, yet held that the Federal Government could 
not reduce to submission a people as numerous as those of 
the Cotton States, without doing violence to the principles, 
ethical and political, upon which the Union was founded. 
This in brief was the position of those who maintained 
the revolutionary right of the people of the seceded states 
to fix their own form of government unawed by any out- 
side power. 

It is not within the purview of our allotted task to vin- 
dicate or even investigate the constitutional right of a 
state, or of the Cotton States, to secede from the Union, 
or to accomplish the same end through the right of revolu- 
tion as inherent in their people. Our discussion is here 
limited to a consideration of the strong anti-coercion 
sentiments among the Virginia people, and how these con- 
victions ultimately controlled their action on the question 
of the secession of their state. It will suffice to say that 
whether regarded as a constitutional or a revolutionary 
right, or both combined, the people of Virginia held 
that the Cotton States, having deliberately and with 
almost unexampled unanimity, decided to dissolve the 
political relations which formerly existed between them 
and their sister commonwealths, that with respect to the 
legal and ethical character of this action there was no 
competent court of review this side of the judgment 
seat of Heaven. The wisdom of their secession might be 
denied, the morality of their action might be questioned, 
the disastrous consequences to the Union might be 
admitted, but still no right existed in any body of men 
to invade their country and defeat their aspirations by the 
sword. 

Had not a people as numerous and united as those of 
the Cotton States the inherent right, in the language of the 



292 DAVIS ON RIGHT OF REVOLUTION 

Declaration of Independence, "To assume among the 
powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which 
the laws of Nature and Nature's God entitled them?" 
Were the just powers of governments derived from the 
consent of the governed? To the Virginians of 1861 it 
was a solecism to accord to one body of people a right, 
and yet acknowledge in another the equal right to defeat 
its exercise. It was an anachronism to talk in America, 
after the Declaration of Independence and the war with 
Great Britain, about the right of self-government in three 
millions of people as being dependent upon force. This 
was acknowledged before Samuel Adams and Thomas 
Jefferson were born, and before the Patriots had made 
good their great avowals by their heroic struggles from 
Concord to Yorktown. Force, Virginia insisted, was not 
the method of holding great masses of American freemen 
in unwilling association with their fellows; nor the im- 
plements of war, the legitimate means for determining 
great questions of legal and ethical right. 

Jefferson Davis, in his farewell address to the United 
States Senate, expressed the sentiments of Virginia upon 
this point when he said: 

"Now, sir, we are confusing language very much. Men 
speak of revolution; and when they say revolution, they 
mean blood. Our fathers meant nothing of the sort. 
When they spoke of revolution, they meant an inalienable 
right. When they declared as an inalienable right, the 
power of the people to abrogate and modify their form 
of government whenever it did not answer the ends for 
which it was established, they did not mean that they 
were to sustain that by brute force. . . . Are we, in this 
age of civilization and political progress ... are we to 
roll back the whole current of human thought and again 
to return to the mere brute force which prevails between 



ANTI-COERCION VIEWS OF VIRGINIANS 293 

beasts of prey as the only method of settling questions 
between men? . . . 

"Is it to be supposed that the men who fought the 
battles of the Revolution for community independence, 
terminated their great efforts by transmitting posterity 
to a condition in which they could only gain those rights 
by force? If so, the blood of the Revolution was shed in 
vain; no great principles were established; for force was 
the law of nature before the battles of the Revolution were 
fought." 1 

Such was the attitude of the great body of the Virginia 
people. That no new principle was asserted to meet the 
exigencies of the hour, all acquainted with the history 
of the state will readily appreciate. Even men who 
denied the constitutional right of secession, joined with 
those who believed in that right in opposing coercion. 

Robert E. Lee, writing on the 23d of January, 1861, said: 

"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of 
our constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom 
and forbearance in its formation and surrounded it with 
so many guards and securities if it was intended to be 
broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. . . . 

"Still a Union that can only be maintained by swords 
and bayonets and in which strife and civil war are to take 
the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm 
for me. If the Union is dissolved and the Government 
disrupted I shall return to my native state and share the 
miseries of my people — and save in defense will draw my 
sword on none." 2 

William C. Rives, speaking on the 19th of February, 
1861, in the Peace Conference at Washington, as one of 
the Commissioners from Virginia, said : 

1 Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 1, p. 617, 
^Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, Long, p. 88. 



294 ANTI-COERCION VIEWS OF VIRGINIANS 

"I condemn the secession of states, I am not here to 
justify it. I detest it, but the fact is still before us. Seven 
states have gone out from among us and a President is 
actually inaugurated to govern the new Confederacy. . . . 
Force will never bring them together. Coercion is not a 
word to be used in this connection." 1 

George Baylor, speaking on the 1st of March 1861, in 
the Virginia Convention, said : 

"I have said, Mr. President, that I did not believe in 
the right of secession. But whilst I make that assertion, 
I also say that I am opposed to coercion on the part of 
the Federal Government with the view of bringing the 
seceded states back into the Union. ... I am opposed 
to it first because I can find no authority in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States delegating that power to the 
Federal Government, and second because if the Federal 
Government had the power it would be wrong to use it." 2 

The foregoing sentiments were not confined to the 
Virginia people, either of the Revolutionary or Civil War 
periods. A few deliverances by men of international 
reputation made during the three decades preceding the 
Civil War will serve to illustrate the truth of this suggestion: 

M. de Tocqueville, in his work, Democracy in America, 
discussing the subject, says: 

"However strong a government may be, it cannot 
easily escape from the consequences of a principle which 
it has once admitted as the foundation of its constitution. 
The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of 
the states; and in uniting together they have never for- 
feited their nationality nor have they been reduced to the 
condition of one and the same people. If one of the 

^Proceedings of Peace Convention, Crittenden, p. 136, 
2 See Richmond Enquirer, March 2d, 1908. 



FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS 295 

states chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it 
would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so; and 
the Federal Government would have no means of main- 
taining its claims directly, either by force or by right." 1 

Lord Brougham in his Political Philosophy, alluding to 
the unique character of the government created by the 
constitution of the United States, writes: 

" There is not, as with us, a government only and its 
subjects to be regarded; but a number of governments, 
of states, having each a separate and substantive, and even 
independent existence, originally thirteen now six and 
twenty, and each having a Legislature of its own with laws 
differing from those of the other states. It is plainly 
impossible to consider the constitution which professes 
to govern this whole Union, this federacy of states, as any- 
thing other than a treaty." 2 

John Quincy Adams, speaking before the New York 
Historical Society in 1839, on the fiftieth aniversary of 
Washington's inauguration as President of the United 
States, said: 

"To the people alone there is reserved as well the dis- 
solving as the constituent power and that power can be 
exercised by them only under the tie of conscience binding 
them to the retributive justice of Heaven. 

"With these qualifications we may admit the right as 
vested in the people of every state of the Union with 
reference to the General Government which was exercised 
by the people of the United Colonies with reference to the 
supreme head of the British Empire of which they formed 
a part and under these limitations have the people of each 
state of the Union a right to secede from the Confederated 
Union itself." 3 

l Democracy in America, de Tocqueville, Vol. II, p. 257. 
2 Political Philosophy, Brougham, 1849, part 3, p. 336. 
3 Buchanan's Administration, Buchanan, p. 98. 



296 CONSENT NOT FORCE 

Mr. Lincoln, speaking on the 12th of January, 1848, 
in Congress, said : 

"Any people anywhere being inclined and having the 
power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing 
government, and form a new one that suits them better. 
This is a most valuable, most sacred right, a right which 
we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this 
right confined to cases in which the whole people of an 
existing government may choose to exercise it. Any por- 
tion of such people that can may revolutionize and make 
their own any or so much of the territory as they inhabit." 1 

Probably Mr. Gladstone expressed in the briefest possible 
compass the general consensus of the Virginia people, when 
on the 24th of April, 18G2, in his Manchester speech, 
referring to the attitude of the Federal Government and 
the Northern people, he said: "We have no faith in the 
propagation of free institutions at the point of the sword." 2 

Scarcely less pronounced were the sentiments of many 
prominent Americans expressed just before the outbreak 
of the Civil War with reference to the moral or political 
right of the Federal Government or the Northern people 
to coerce the Southern States. 

Horace Greeley, in the issue of the New York Tribune 
of November 9th, 1860, discussing the contemplated 
secession of the Cotton States, wrote : 

"If the Cotton States shall decide that they can do 
better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting 
them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolu- 
tionary one but it exists nevertheless; and we do not see 

1 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H., 
Vol. I, p. 105. 

^History o} the United States, Rhodes, Vol. IV, p. 80. 



VIEWS OF PROMINENT AMERICANS 297 

how one party can have a right to do what another party 
has a right to prevent." 1 

Again he wrote : 

"If it (the Declaration of Independence) justified the 
secession from the British Empire of three millions of 
colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify 
the secession of five millions of Southerners from the 
Federal Union in 1861. If we are mistaken on this point 
why does not some one attempt to show wherein and 
why(?)" 2 

On the 23d of February, 1861, he wrote: 

" We have repeatedly said and we once more insist that 
the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declara- 
tion of American Independence that governments derive 
their just powers from the consent of the governed is sound 
and just; and that if the Slave States, the Cotton States, or 
the Gulf States only, choose to form an independent nation 
they have a clear moral right to do so." 3 

President Buchanan, in his message to Congress on the 
3d of December, 1860, said: 

"The fact is that our Union rests upon public opinion 
and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens 
shed in civil war. If it cannot live in the affections of the 
people it must one day perish. Congress possesses many 
means of preserving it by conciliation; but the sword 
was not placed in their hands to preserve it by force." 

Edward Everett, writing on the 2d of February, 1861, 
to the Union Meeting called to assemble at Faneuil Hall, 
said: 

tffistory of the United States, Rhodes, Vol. Ill, p. 140. 
t Life of James Buchanan, Curtis, Vol. II, p. 430. 
3 Idem. 



298 VIEWS OF PROMINENT AMERICANS 

"To expect to hold fifteen states in the Union by force 
is preposterous. The idea of a civil war, accompanied, as 
it would be, by a servile insurrection, is too monstrous 
to be entertained for a moment. If our sister states 
must leave us, in the name of Heaven, let them go in 
peace." 1 

Wendell Phillips, speaking at New Bedford, Mass., on 
the 9th of April, 1861, said: 

"But I am sorry that a gun should be fired at Fort 
Sumter or that a gun should be fired from it for this 
reason : The administration at Washington does not know 
its time. Here are a series of states girding the Gulf who 
think that their peculiar institutions require that they should 
have a separate government. They have a right to decide 
that question without appealing to you or me. A large 
body of people, sufficient to make a nation, have come to 
the conclusion that they will have a government of a 
certain form. Who denies them the right? Standing 
with the principles of 76 behind us, who can deny them 
the right?" 2 

Abraham Lincoln, speaking on the 15th of November, 
1860, said: 

" My own impression is, leaving myself room to modify 
the opinion, if, upon further investigation, I should see fit 
to do so, that this Government possesses both the authority 
and the power to maintain its own integrity. That, 
however, is not the ugly point of this matter. The ugly 
point is the necessity of keeping the Government together 
by force as ours should be a Government of fraternity," 3 

On the 10th of April, 1861, only five days previous to 
the call for seventy-five thousand soldiers, Mr. Seward, as 

'Origin of the Late War, Lunt, 1816, p. 431. 

2 History of Massachusetts in Civil War, Schouler, Vol. I, p. 45. 

3 Abra1mm Lincoln, A History, N. & H., Vol. Ill, p. 247. 



VIRGINIA ADHERES TO HER PRINCIPLES 299 

Secretary of State, in an official communication to the 
American Minister to Great Britain, wrote : 

"For these reasons he (the President) would not be 
disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs (the Secession- 
ists), namely, that the Federal Government could not 
reduce the seceding states to obedience by conquest, even 
though he were disposed to question that proposition. 
But, in fact, the President willingly accepts it as true. 
Only an imperial or despotic government could subjugate 
thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the 
state. This Federal Republican system of ours of all 
forms of government is the very one which is most unfitted 
for such labor," 1 

Such were some of the deliverances of prominent Ameri- 
cans in the days immediately preceding the Civil War. 
They expressed the sentiments of leading Virginians of 
the time and explained and vindicated their position in 
resisting the policy of coercion adopted by the Federal 
Government. Why was it that in the supreme hour 
Greeley and Seward and Lincoln, and all their notable 
compatriots, parted company with Virginia? 

Charles Francis Adams says: 

"Virginia, as I have said, made state sovereignty an 
article — a cardinal article — of its political creed. So 
logically and consistently it took the position that though 
it might be unwise for a state to secede, a state which 
did secede could not and should not be coerced. 

"To us now this position seems worse than illogical. It 
is impossible. So events proved it then. Yet, after all, 
it is based on the fundamental principle of the consent of 
the governed; and in the days immediately preceding the 
Civil War something very like it was accepted as an article 
of correct political faith by men afterwards as strenuous 

1 Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861, p. 58. 



300 VIRGINIA ADHERES TO HER PRINCIPLES 

in support of a Union re-established by force as Charles 
Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Salmon P. 
Chase, and Horace Greeley. The difference was that 
confronted by the overwhelming tide of events, Virginia ad- 
hered to it ; they, in presence of that tide, tacitly abandoned 
it." 1 

l Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers, C. F. Adams, 1902, p. 403-4. 



XLIII 

Conclusion 

The crisis arose and thus was precipitated Virginia's 
secession. To many of her people it came as a long hoped 
for event. They rejoiced that Virginia was now to enter 
upon a more inspiring career untrammelled by associates di- 
vergent in sentiments and hostile in interests. They hailed 
the rise of the Southern Confederacy as a new nation born 
into the world, and with eager hearts looked forward to 
a future which should bring to the people of Virginia and 
the South a measure of self-government, peace and pros- 
perity they had never known before. 

To the majority, however, of the Virginia people the 
event came as one long dreaded and much to be deplored. 
They met it with a firm adherence to the principles so 
often declared, but with profound regret that the occasion 
had arisen which rendered their assertion imperative. 

The pathos no less than the determination which marked 
the hour may be read in the contemporary utterances of her 
foremost men. 

Her Governor, John Letcher, in his message to the 
General Assembly, January 1861, said: 

"Surely no people have been blessed as we have been, 
and it is melancholy to think that all is now about to be 
sacrificed on the Altar of Passion. If the judgments of 
men were consulted, if the admonitions of their consciences 
were respected, the Union would yet be saved from over- 
throw." 

301 



302 VIRGINIANS DEPLORE DISUNION 

Three months later, however, in response to the call for 
Virginia's quota of troops, he wrote to the authorities at 
Washington: "You have chosen to inaugurate civil war; 
and, having done so, we will meet you in a spirit as deter- 
mined as the Administration has exhibited toward the 
South." 

Robert E. Lee, anticipating the event, in January, 1861, 
wrote : 

"I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare 
and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved and 
the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native 
state and share the miseries of my people, and, save in 
defense, will draw my sword on none." 1 

Three months later, in accepting the command of 
Virginia's army of defense, he said: "Trusting in Almighty 
God, an approving conscience and the aid of my fellow- 
citizens, I devote myself to the service of my native state." 

Equally significant were the sentiments of the wife of 
this great Virginian. Writing to General Winfield Scott, 
May 5th, 1861, Mary Custis Lee said: "No honors can 
reconcile us to this fratricidal war which we would have 
laid down our lives freely to avert ... Oh ! that you could 
command peace to our distracted country. Yours in 
sorrow and sadness." 2 

John Janney, on accepting the Presidency of the Virginia 
Convention, February 13th, 1861, said: 

" Gentlemen, there is a flag ... which now floats over 
this Capitol on which there is a star representing this 
ancient commonwealth and my earnest prayer, in which 
I know every member of this body will cordially unite, is 

^Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, Long, p. 88. 

2 See letter from Mrs. R. E. Lee to General Winfield Scott, in 
Life of Robert E. Lee, Fitzhugh Lee, p. 93. 



RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VIRGINIANS 303 

that it may remain there forever, provided always that 
its lustre is untarnished." 

On the 23d of April, 1861, in notifying Robert E. Lee 
of his appointment as chief in command of Virginia's 
militia, he said: 

" Virginia having taken her position, as far as the power 
of this Convention extends, we stand, animated by one 
impulse, governed by one desire and one determination — 
and that is, that she shall be defended; and that no spot 
of her soil shall be polluted by the foot of an invader." 1 

Matthew F. Maury writing on the 11th of May, 1861, 
said: "I grant them (certain of his Northern friends) 
sincere, but I cannot but lament in the depths of my heart 
and in excruciating agony that their delusion is such as 
to have already allowed the establishment of a military 
despotism." 

Again he wrote : " All of us are of one mind, very cool, 
very determined, no desire for a conflict. We are on the 
defensive." 2 

John B. Baldwin, when asked after President Lincoln's 
proclamation what would be the position of the Union 
men in Virginia, wrote: 

"We have no Union men in Virginia now. But those 
who were Union men will stand to their guns, and make a 
fight that will shine out on the page of history as an example 
of what a brave people can do after exhausting every 
means of pacification." 3 

In addition to all the considerations set forth in the 
foregoing pages, the student of history must, if he would 
fully appreciate the forces which controlled their action 
with respect to secession and the Civil War, take into 

1 Journal of Virginia Convention, 1861, pp. 9 and 187. 
2 Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury, Corbin, p. 96. 
3 School History of the United States, Jones, p. 239. 



304 VIRGINIA'S STAND PREDETERMINED 

account the racial characteristics of the Virginia people. 
A full portrayal of these characteristics, strongly marked 
and persisting from generation to generation, must be the 
work of some other pen. Suffice it here to say that as 
a people they exalted honor and courage — both in the 
individual and in the clan; they exhibited the strength of 
the idealist, combined, on the part of many, with the 
limitations of the doctrinaire; they decided questions by 
the standards of abstract right rather than in their relation 
to the duties and interests of other peoples and other 
times; they were self-reliant, content to justify the integrity 
of their conduct to their own consciences rather than to 
the world; they were tenacious of their rights and regarded a 
threatened invasion as not only justifying but compelling re- 
sistance if the ideals and conditions which make men patri- 
ots and freemen were to find an abiding place in their state. 

"We are not contending," wrote Washington in 1774, 
" against paying the duty of three pence per pound on tea 
as burdensome, no, it is the right only that we have all 
along disputed." 1 

"It is the principle," wrote Lee in 1861, "I contend 
for, not individual or private benefit." 2 

Such were some of the predominant characteristics of 

the people whom President Lincoln's proclamation called 

to war. In the conflict thus joined between the Federal 

Government and the Southern Confederacy, the people of 

Virginia took a stand, predetermined by the beliefs and 

avowals of successive generations, and impelled by an 

unswerving idealism found their supreme incentive to 

action in their determination to maintain the integrity of 

principle. 

l History of the United States, Bancroft, Vol. 4, p. 29. 
2 Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, Long, p. 88. 



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U^ 



INDEX 



Abolitionists, adverse influence of, 
upon anti-slavery sentiment in 
Virginia, 43, 48, 51, 59; char- 
acter of assaults of, upon slavery 
and Virginians, 48, 49; views 
of Thomas Jefferson Randolph 
upon, 51 ; views of George Tuck- 
er upon, 51, 52; views of Henry 
Ruffner upon, 53; views of 
William Ellery Channing upon, 
53; views of Abraham Lincoln 
upon, 54, 55; views of Daniel 
Webster upon, 55; views of 
Stephen A. Douglas upon, 56; 
views of Thomas Ewing upon, 
56; views of George Lunt upon, 
57; views of George Ticknor 
Curtis upon, 57; views of Theo- 
dore Roosevelt upon, 58;, views 
of William Henry Smith upon, 
58; attitude of, contrasted with 
that of Republicans, 194, 195; 
efforts of, to defeat fugitive 
slave law, 200, 201; purpose 
and methods of, 210, 212; dis- 
union sentiments of, 213; con- 
tended that Union alone pro- 
tected slaveholders, 219; see 
John Brown, Thomas Went- 
worth Higginson, William Lloyd 
Garrison, Theodore Parker, 
Wendell Phillips. 

Abolition of Slavery in Virginia, 
petition for, from citizens of 
Staunton, 128, 129. 

Adams, Charles Francis, estimate of 



Virginians at Gettysburg, 139, 
140; estimate of racial diffi- 
culties, 181; his analysis of 
Virginia's grounds of secession, 
249; records effects of Virginia's 
declaration for union, 253; on 
coercion as the issue, 255; views 
as to Virginia's unchanged al- 
legiance to state sovereignty, 
294. 

Adams, John Quincy, on action of 
anti-slavery societies, 1835, 174; 
not an Abolitionist, 195; views 
as to right of secession, 290. 

Adams, Reverend Nehemiah, on 
assaults upon Virginia by Aboli- 
tionists, 48, 49; on feeling in 
Virginia regarding slave traders, 
141; on reactionary effects of 
Abolitionists, 176. 

African Slave Trade, early opposi- 
tion to, in Virginia, 16; letter of 
Colonel William Byrd against, 
16; petition of Virginia House 
of Burgesses against, 1772, 18; 
arraignment of in original draft 
of Declaration of Independence, 
19; Virginia Colonial Convention 
1774, hostile to, 21 ; declaration 
against in Continental Congress, 
1774, 21, 22; Virginia's statute 
abolishing, 1778, 25; George 
Mason's denunciation of, 30; 
efforts of Virginians in Congress 
to suppress, 33 ; President Jeffer- 
son's message, 1806-07 on sup- 



313 



314 



INDEX 



pression of, 34; President Madi- 
son's message, 1810, recom- 
mending more stringent laws 
against, 35; act of 1819 against, 
36; joint resolution of Congress, 

1823, against, 36; "Right of 
Search" in suppression of, ad- 
vocated by President Monroe, 

1824, 37; President Tyler's mes- 
sage against, 1841-42, 38; ap- 
peal of Henry A. Wise against, 
1845, 38-39; President Taylor's 
message against, 1849, 39. 

Agriculture in Virginia, injurious 
effects of slavery upon, 127-137. 

Amalgamation of blacks and whites, 
Governor James McDowell on, 
163; William C. Rives on, 163- 
164; M. de Tocqueville on, 164; 
Stephen A. Douglas on, 165; 
General William T. Sherman on, 
165; William H. Seward on, 
165; Abraham Lincoln on, 165- 
166. 

American Anti-Slavery Society, its 
organization, 1833, 200; dis- 
union resolutions of, May, 1844, 
213. 

American Civil War, character of, 
1-3; parties to, 2, 3; causes of, 
3-5; objects for which it was 
waged, 5-9. 

American Colonization Society, its 
organization, 1816, 61; estab- 
lishes colony of Liberia, 1819, 
62, 63; organization of auxiliary 
societies to, in Virginia, 63; 
work of, impeded by pro-slav- 
ery men and Abolitionists, 65. 

Amendment to constitution, pro- 
posed by Congress, 1861, safe- 
guarding slavery, 192; ratified 
by Ohio and Maryland, 192. 



Annapolis, convention assembles at, 

1786, to amend Articles of 
Confederation, 238. 

Anti-Slavery sentiments, of promi- 
ment Virginians, 82-101. 

Apportionment, basis of, for repre- 
sentation in Virginia Legisla- 
ture, 144, 172. 

Arkansas, secedes because of Lin- 
coln's call for troops, 226. 

Bacon, Reverend Leonard, estimate 
of condition of free negroes, 
1831, 160. 

Baldwin, John B., a Union leader 
in Virginia Convention, 1861, 
255; urges President Lincoln to 
abandon coercion, 266 ; on posi- 
tion of Union men in Virginia 
after her secession, 297. 

Ballagh, J. H., on Virginia's primacy 
in prohibiting African slave 
trade, 25; on slavery debate in 
Virginia's Legislature, 1832, 46; 
on estimate of number of slaves 
freed in Virginia, 102. 

Bancroft, George, on Virginia's ef- 
fort to prohibit importation of 
slaves, 17; on Virginia's Bill of 
Rights, 23; on Ordinance of 

1787, 27; on injurious effect of 
slavery on Virginia, 127; esti- 
mate of Virginia's action in 
calling for intercolonial com- 
mittees of correspondence, 235; 
estimate of Virginia's action in 
securing Convention at Phila- 
delphia, 1787, 239. 

Banks, Governor N. P., addresses 
Legislature of Massachusetts, 
January, 1861, on "personal 
liberty laws/' 205. 

Barton, D. W., emancipates slaves, 
70. 



INDEX 



315 



Barton, Robert T., letter to author 
regarding above, 70, 71. 

Bates, Edwin, his reply as Attorney 
General to President Lincoln's 
request for opinions on pro- 
visioning Fort Sumter, 282 and 
284. 

Baylor, George, remarks in Virginia 
Convention, 1861, on secession 
and coercion, 261; on coercing 
Cotton States, 289. 

Berry, Henry, anti-slavery senti- 
ments, 93. 

Bill of Rights, Virginia's, on inherent 
rights of men, 22-23. 

"Black Belt" in Virginia, its white 
and slave population, 125. 

Blackburn, Samuel, will emancipat- 
ing slaves, 113. 

Blaine, James G., on slavery in the 
territories, 185; on action of 
Republicans in Congress, 1861, 
abandoning their position on 
the subject, 185; on protection 
afforded to slavery by the 
Union, 222. 

Blair, Montgomery, replies, as Post- 
master General, to President 
Lincoln's request for opinions 
on provisioning Fort Sumter, 
282 and 284. 

Bland, Theodoric, efforts in first 
Congress, to tax importation of 
slaves, 33. 

Boiling, Philip A., anti-slavery senti- 
ments of, 95; on injurious ef- 
fects of slavery, 130. 

Bonner, Jesse, will emancipating 
slaves, 107. 

Booth, Sherman M., convicted by 
Federal Court, and discharged 
by State Court of Wisconsin, 
203. 



Branch, Thomas, remarks of, in 
Virginia Convention, 1861, on 
President Lincoln's First In- 
augural, 261. 

Brent, George W., remarks of, in 
Virginia Convention, 1861, on 
influence of Abolitionists in 
North, and Free Traders in 
South, in precipitating the Civil 
War, 262. 

Broadnax, William H., views ex- 
pressed in slavery debate, 1832, 
47; anti-slavery sentiments of, 
92. 

Brokenbrough, John W., delegate 
from Virginia to Peace Con- 
ference, 1861, 246. 

Brown Co., Ohio, colonization of 
Samuel Gist's slaves in, 66. 

Brown John, John W. Burgess's 
estimate of reactionary influ- 
ence of his Raid and of Northern 
sympathy, 178; disastrous in- 
fluence of his Raid upon senti- 
ment in the South, 178; Lin- 
coln's estimate of his Raid, 195; 
captured by United States sol- 
diers, 212; sympathy of leading- 
Abolitionists with, 218; promi- 
ment Abolitionists, parties to 
his venture, 219. 

Brougham, Lord, on character of 
Federal Government, 290. 

Buchanan, James, extract from 
message, as President, 1860, on 
influence of Abolitionists, 177; 
message to Congress, 1860, on 
"personal liberty laws," 204. 

Burgesses — House of, their petition, 
1772, against slave trade, 18; 
their resolutions against Stamp 
Act, 1765, 234; pledging support 
to Massachusetts, 1768, 234; 



316 



INDEX 



asserting resistance to Great 
Britain, 1769, 234; providing 
for intercolonial committees of 
correspondence, 1773, 235; fix- 
ing day for fasting and prayer, 
1774, 235. 

Burgess, J. W., on reactionary in- 
fluence of John Brown's Raid, 
178; on effect of sympathy 
evinced for John Brown in many 
parts of the North, 178. 

Burke, Edmund, on England's par- 
ticipation in slave trade and 
Virginia's opposition, 17; on 
John Hampden's position, 229. 

Byrd, Colonel William, anti-slavery 
sentiments of, 1736, 16, Note 
1. 

Caldwell, E. B., prominent in orga- 
nizing American Colonization 
Society, 61. 

Cameron, Simon, his reply, as Secre- 
tary of War, to President Lin- 
coln's request for opinion on 
provisioning Fort Sumter, 281 
and 289. 

Carlile, John S., on protection of 
slavery by the Union, 223. 

Carr, Dabney, author of resolutions 
providing for intercolonial com- 
mittees of correspondence, 235. 

Carroll, Charles of Carrolton, Presi- 
dent of American Colonization 
Society, 62. 

Carter, Robert, deeds, emancipating 
slaves, 105. 

Cass Co., Michigan, colonization in, of 
Sampson Sanders' slaves, 70. 

Chadwick, F. E., analysis of census 
showing number of Virginia's 
slaveholders, 124; estimate of 
number of Virginians living 
beyond the State, 1860, 128; 



on the prominent men, parties 
to John Brown's Raid, 219. 

Chandler, John A., anti-slavery sen- 
timents, 92. 

Chandler, Zachariah, letter regarding 
Peace Conference, 1861, 249. 

Channing, William Ellery, on ad- 
verse influence of Abolitionists, 
53. 

Chase, Salmon P., on impossibility 
of complete enforcement of fugi- 
tive slave law, 187 and 206; 
replies, as Secretary of the 
Treasury, to President Lincoln's 
request for opinion on provision- 
ing Fort Sumter, 283, 284. 

Clark, General George Rogers, Con- 
queror of Northwest Territory, 
26 and 237. 

Clay, Henry, presides at meeting to 
organize American Colonization 
Society, 1816, 61; President of 
American Colonization Society, 
62 ; on emancipation and coloni- 
zation of negroes, 76, 77; on 
condition of free negroes in 
1829, 160. 

Cleveland, Ohio, place of proposed 
Disunion Convention, October, 
1857, 214. 

Cocke, Eliza W., deed emancipating 
slaves, 122. 

Coercion, controlling factor in de- 
termining Virginia's secession, 
252; Robert E. Lee denies 
ethical right of, 288; William 
C. Rives denies same, 289; 
George Baylor denies same, 289; 
M. de Tocqueville denies right 
of by Federal Government, 289; 
Lord Brougham denies same, 
290. 

Coles, Edward, emancipates his 



INDEX 



317 



slaves and colonizes them in 
Illinois, 66, 67; prosecuted and 
fined for this act, 67. 

Coles, Roberts, killed at battle of 
Roanoke Island, 68. 

Colonization of negroes, appropria- 
tion by Virginia Legislature in 
aid of, 59, 64; origin of the idea 
of, 60; resolutions of Virginia 
Legislature favoring, 1800, 60; 
same, 1805, 60; same, 1816, 61; 
organization of American So- 
ciety to promote, 61; by indi- 
vidual slaveholders, 66-73 ; views 
of Jefferson, Clay and Lincoln 
on, 75-81. 

Colorado, organized as a territory 
without prohibition as to slav- 
ery, 1861, 186. 

Commerce, decline of, in Virginia, 
134 and 137. 

Congress, 1789, efforts of Virginians 
in, to tax importation of slaves, 
33; resolutions adopted by, 
defining attitude regarding 
slavery, 1861, 1S7; amendment 
to constitution proposed by, 
1861, 192; resolution of, defining 
attitude on purpose of War, 
1861, 194; Act of, February 
12, 1793, regarding return of 
fugitive slaves, 199; Act of, 
September 18, 1850, regarding 
fugitive slaves, 202; resolutions 
adopted February, 1861, regard- 
ing fugitive slave act, 205. 

Congress, Continental of 1774, Vir- 
ginia's anti-slavery attitude de- 
fined in, 21, 22. 

Congress, Continental of 1784, ac- 
cepts Virginia's deed ceding 
Northwest Territory, 26. 

Connecticut, Statute of, 1833, re- 



garding establishment of schools 
for non-resident negroes, 167; 
"personal liberty laws," 202. 

Constitution, Virginia's opposition 
to clause permitting African 
slave trade, 29; clauses of, re- 
garding fugitives from justice 
and fugitive slaves, 197; copies 
burned by Abolitionists at 
public meetings, 216. 

Controversy, regarding slavery, sta- 
tus of at time of Virginia's 
secession, 182-201. 

Convention, Virginia's Colonial, 
1777, resolves against slave 
trade, 21; Virginia's, 1861, ma- 
jority of delegates to, Union 
men, 252; report of committee 
from, on reply of President 
Lincoln, 274. 

Cotton States, effect of withdrawal 
of representatives of, from Con- 
gress, 186; sent no delegates 
to Peace Conference, 1861, 249; 
coercion of, by Federal Govern- 
ment, crucial factor in deter- 
mining Virginia's secession, 266 ; 
coercion of, repugnant to many 
people both North and South, 
271; Virginia's attitude regard- 
ing their secession, 286. 

Curtis, George Ticknor, on adverse 
influence of Abolitionists, 57; 
attests anti-slavery sentiment 
in Virginia in 1832, 143. 

Custis, G. W. P., furnishes asylum 
for Liberian colonists, 63; anti- 
slavery sentiments of, 96; eman- 
cipates his slaves, 102; will, 
emancipating slaves, 121. 

Dakota, organized as a territory, 
1861, without prohibition of 
slavery, 186. 



318 



INDEX 



Davies, Arthur B., will emancipating 
slaves, 120. 

Davis, Jefferson, on attitude of 
Southern Confederacy towards 
the Union and slavery, 6; on the 
right of revolution, 287. 

Declaration of Independence, clause 
against slavery and slave trade, 
stricken out of, 19, 20. 

Deeds and wills emancipating slaves, 
specimens of, 103-123. 

Dew, Thomas R., on slavery debate 
of 1832, 47. 

Disunion, Abolitionists advocate, 
213. 

Disunion Convention, meets at Wor- 
cester, Mass., 1857, 214; fails to 
assemble at Cleveland, 1857, 
214. 

Douglas, Stephen A., on negro 
problem, 165. 

Du Bois, W. E. B., on Virginia's 
effort to abolish slave trade, 22. 

Early, Albert, will emancipating 
slaves, 116. 

Early, Joseph, will emancipating 
slaves, 118. 

Early, Jubal A., remarks, in Vir- 
ginia Convention, 1861, on Lin- 
coln's First Inaugural, 262. 

Edlow, Carter H., will emancipating 
slaves, 114. 

Emancipation, problems, social and 
political of, in Virginia, 161; 
Lincoln's estimate of difficul- 
ties of, 180. 

Emancipation in Virginia, difficulties 
attending, 157-180. 

Emancipation Proclamations, 226. 

Emigration, of slaveholders from 
Virginia, 146. 

Eppes, Francis, will emancipating 
slaves, 117. 



Everett, Edward, on coercing the 
seceding States, 284. 

Ewell, Charles, will emancipating 
slaves, 108. 

Ewing, Thomas, on adverse influence 
of Abolitionists, 56, 57. 

"Fanatics," Northern, their reac- 
tionary influence, 172. 

Faulkner, Charles J., a leader of 
anti-slavery party in Virginia 
Legislature 1832, 91 ; anti-slavery 
sentiments of, 93; on injurious 
effects of slavery upon Vir- 
ginia's prosperity, 130; allusion 
to anti-slavery sentiment in 
Virginia, 1832, 143. 

Federal Government, attitude of, 
regarding all questions arising 
out of slavery, 182. 

"Fire Eaters," Southern, their re- 
actionary influence, 172. 

Fiske, John, on Virginia's claim upon 
Northwest Territory, 26; on her 
part in enacting Ordinance of 
1787, 27 ; on forces which secured 
enactment of clause in constitu- 
tion, permitting African slave 
trade, 29; on anti -slavery party 
in Virginia, 138; declares that 
Virginia made first formal de- 
fiance to Stamp Act, 234; on 
Madison's part in framing con- 
stitution, 240; his estimate of 
John Marshall, 241. 

Fitzhugh, William Henry, extract 
from his will emancipating 
slaves, 111. 

Floyd, John, joint author, with Mer- 
cer, of Act of 1819, in opposition 
to African slave trade, 36. 

Forts, Federal jurisdiction over, in 
seceding states, 271. 

Free discussion, lack of, in Virginia, 



INDEX 



319 



hinders emancipation, 172; 
causes, which restrained it, in 
Virginia, 172-178. 

Free negroes, number in Virginia 
at close of Revolution, 42; rapid 
increase of, under statutes per- 
mitting emancipations, 42; com- 
pelled to leave state within 
twelve months after emancipa- 
tion, 43 ; their handicap in slave 
communities, 161; their treat- 
ment at the North, prior to 
1860, 160; statutes of various 
Northern States restrict them 
from becoming residents there- 
of, 168-170; dread of their 
presence, as residents, on the 
part of Northern people, 170, 
171. 

Fugitives from justice, provision of 
constitution referring to, 195; 
decision of Supreme Court con- 
struing same, 208. 

Fugitive slaves, their owners could 
gain nothing by Virginia's seces- 
sion, 209. 

Fugitive Slave Law, of 1850, among 
causes of Civil War, 209; atti- 
tude on, of Republican Party, 
187-189; Lincoln, author of a, 
188; provision of constitution 
referring to, 197; of 1793, history 
of its enactment, 199; of 1850, 
history of its enactment, 202; 
its execution impeded by the 
Underground Railroad, 200, 
201 ; declared constitutional by 
Supreme Court, 203. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, his biog- 
rapher's estimate of status of 
free negroes, prior to 1860, 160, 
161 ; leader of Abolitionists, 211 ; 
disunion sentiments of, 213- 



215; denounces Webster, 216; 
his estimate of Longfellow's 
Ode to the Union, 217; his 
eulogy of John Brown, 218; an 
apologist for slave insurrections, 
218; applauds South Carolina's 
secession, 221. 

Georgia, requisition of Governor of, 
upon Governor of Maine for 
return of fugitives from justice, 
denied, 207. 

Gilmer, Francis W., anti-slavery 
sentiment of, 88. 

Gist, Samuel, colonization of his ex- 
slaves in Ohio, 66. 

Gladstone, William E., his estimate 
of the unjustifiable attitude of 
the North, 291. 

Goode, John, a leader of the Seces- 
sionists in Virginia Convention, 
1861, 254. 

Greeley, Horace, declares right of 
Cotton States to secede, 291. 

Green, J. R., declares Virginia first 
to formally deny right of Great 
Britain to tax colonies, 234. 

Harrison, Jesse Burton, his estimate 
of Virginia's poverty in 1832, in- 
duced by slavery, 131, 132. 

Hart, A. B., on the practice of buy- 
ing and selling slaves, note 2, 
152; on number of slaveholders 
in the Southern States, 153; his 
estimate of Underground Rail- 
road, 201. 

Harvie, Lewis E., a leader of the 
Secessionists, Virginia Conven- 
tion, 1861, 254. 

Hawes, Aylette, extract from will, 
emancipating his slaves, 110. 

Henderson, G. F. R., on Virginia's 
loyalty, 211 ; on the propriety of 
Virginia's secession, 278. 



320 



IXDEX 



Henry, Patrick, anti-slavery senti- 
ments of, 83. 

Herndon, Thaddeus, sends ex-slaves 
to Liberia, 71. 

Herndon, Traverse, sends ex-slaves 
to Liberia, 71; extract from 
will, emancipating his slaves, 
119. 

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, a 
leader of Abolitionists, 214. 

Hill, A. P., never owned a slave, 156. 

Hill, Joseph, extract from deed, 
emancipating his slaves, 104. 

Holcombe, James P., a leader of the 
Secessionists, Virginia Conven- 
tion, 1861, 254. 

Howison, R. R., anti-slavery senti- 
ments of, 98, 99; his estimate 
of Virginia's poverty, 1848, in- 
duced by slavery, 134. 

Illinois, denies free negroes' right 
to become residents of, 1853, 169. 

Indiana, denies free negroes' right 
to become residents of, 1S51, 
169. 

Jackson, Stonewall, owned one slave 
at time of war, 155. 

Janney, John, extract from his speech 
in Virginia Convention of 1861, 
243, 254; a leader of the Union 
men, Virginia Convention, 1861, 
255; extract from his speech 
notifying Lee of his appoint- 
ment as chief of Virginia's 
militia, 297. 

Jefferson, Thomas, on arraignment 
of slave trade in original draft 
of Declaration of Independence, 
19; records reason for omitting 
clause against slave trade in 
Declaration of Independence, 
20; his lament at defeat of clause 
restricting slavery in Ordinance 



of 1784, 27; urges Congress to 
prohibit importation of slaves, 
34; originates idea of negro 
colonization, 60; efforts, as 
President, to promote same, 60; 
on necessity of negro coloniza- 
tion, 75, 76; anti-slavery senti- 
ments of, 86; on political diffi- 
culties of emancipation in Vir- 
ginia, 162; on beneficial results 
of diffusing slaves through the 
territories, 185. 

Jennings, William D., extract from 
will, emancipating his slaves, 
119. 

Johnston, Joseph E., never owned a 
slave, 156. 

Key, Francis Scott, prominent in 
organizing American Coloniza- 
tion Society, 61. 

Lee, Fitzhugh, never owned a slave, 
156. 

Lee, Mary Custis, extract from her 
letter deploring the war, 296. 

Lee, Richard Henry, anti-slavery 
sentiments of, 82. 

Lee, Robert E., anti-slavery senti- 
ments of, 100, 101; owned no 
slaves at time of war, 155; de- 
clares disunion an aggravation 
of the ills of the South, 223; 
denies constitutionality of seces- 
sion, 288; denies ethical right 
of coercion, 288; his sorrow at 
disunion, 296. 

Leigh, Benjamin Watkins, anti- 
slavery sentiments of, 89. 

Letcher, John, extract from his 
message as Governor of Vir- 
ginia, January, 1861, 244; ex- 
tract from reply to requisition of 
Secretary of War for Virginia's 
quota of troops, 278. 



INDEX 



321 



Liberia, circumstances attending its 
establishment as a negro colony, 
62, 63. 

Lightfoot, Philip, extract from will, 
emancipating his slaves, 120. 

Lincoln, Abraham, on slavery as 
defined in first inaugural, 6 and 
15; on adverse influence of 
Abolitionists, 53-55; on eman- 
cipation and colonization of 
negroes, 79-81; on amalgama- 
tion of blacks and whites and 
on their racial inequality, 166; 
his reference to the dread of 
Northern people to receive free 
negroes, 171 ; author of bill con- 
taining fugitive slave clause, 
188; on fugitive slaves as ex- 
pressed in first inaugural, 189; 
letter to Alexander H. Stephens 
regarding interference with 
slavery, 191; position as to pro- 
posed amendment of constitu- 
tion regarding protection of 
slavery, 1861, 193; not an 
Abolitionist, 195; on John 
Brown's Raid, 195; explanation 
of his expression "Government 
cannot endure half slave and 
half free," 196; on the effect and 
character of his Emancipation 
Proclamations, 227; patriotism 
and literary beauty of first 
inaugural, 259; regards Union 
as unbroken by secession, 259; 
his declaration of policy, 260; 
reply to Virginia Commissioners, 
April 13, 1861, 274 and 275; his 
call for 75,000 troops, April 15, 
1861, 275; requests, March 15, 
1861, his cabinet officers' opin- 
ions, as to propriety of provi- 
sioning Fort Sumter, 280; re- 



quests their further opinion, 
March 29, 284; on right of 
revolution, 290; on legal and 
ethical rights of coercion, 
293. 

Lunt, George, on reactionary in- 
fluence of Abolitionists upon 
anti-slavery sentiment in Vir- 
ginia, 57; on John Brown's Raid, 
177; on effect of personal liberty 
laws, 206. 

Madison, James, opposes clause in 
constitution, permitting African 
slave trade, 31 ; his efforts to 
impose tariff tax on importation 
of slaves, 33; messages, as 
President, opposing African 
slave trade, 35; third President 
of American Colonization Soci- 
ety, 62 ; anti-slavery sentiments 
of, 90; declares disunion a men- 
ace to slavery, 222 ; heads delega- 
tion from Virginia to Annapolis 
Convention, 1786, 238; his great 
part in framing constitution, 
240. 

Marshall, John, first President of 
Colonization Society of Virginia, 
64; anti-slavery sentiments of, 
88. 

Marshall, Thomas, a leader in anti- 
slavery party in Virginia Legis- 
lature, 1832, 46; anti-slavery 
sentiments of, 92; his estimate 
of injurious effects of slavery 
upon prosperity of Virginia, 
129, 130. 

Maryland, ratifies proposed amend- 
ment to constitution, 1861, pro- 
tecting slavery, 192. 

Mason, George, his speech against 
clause in constitution permit- 
ting African slave trade, 30; 



322 



INDEX 



Virginia's statue to his fame, 31 ; 
anti-slavery sentiments of, 84. 

Maury, Matthew F., anti-slavery 
sentiments of, 99; never owned 
but one slave, 156; his reference 
to coercion as cause of Virginia's 
secession, 266; extract from his 
letter regarding the approaching 
war, 297. 

McDowell, James, a leader in anti- 
slavery party, in Virginia Legis- 
lature, 1832, 46; anti-slavery 
sentiments of, 93; his estimate 
of injurious effects of slavery, 
131; on racial problems, 163; 
declares disunion a menace to 
slavery, 222. 

McGuire, Hunter, his estimate of 
number of slaveholders in the 
Stonewall Brigade, 155. 

McMaster, J. B., his estimate of 
condition of free negroes, 160. 

Meade, William, anti-slavery senti- 
ments of, 100; extract from 
deed, emancipating a slave, 115; 
his estimate of injury to Vir- 
ginia's prosperity, induced by 
slavery, 135. 

Mercer, Charles Fenton, author of 
law against African slave trade, 
36; of resolution denouncing 
African slave trade as piracy, 
36; his remarks in Congress, 
supporting resolution, 36, 37; 
his visits to the Old World, seek- 
ing co-operation, 37; prominent 
in organizing American Coloni- 
zation Society, 61; anti-slavery 
sentiments of, 98. 

Mercer, Margaret, her letter to Gerrit 
Smith regarding Abolitionists, 
175. 

Mills, Samuel J., his visit to Africa, 



regarding establishing Colony of 
Liberia, 62. 

Missouri Compromise, its enactment 
and repeal among causes of 
Civil War, 4; provision of, re- 
stricting rights of slaveholders 
in territories, 180; declared un- 
constitutional by the Supreme 
Court, 183. 

Monroe, James, message to Congress 
on Right of Search, 37; anti- 
slavery sentiments of, 89. 

Montague, Robert L., a leader of the 
Secessionists, Virginia Conven- 
tion, 1861, 254. 

Moorman, Charles, extract from deed 
emancipating his slaves, 104. 

Morton, Jeremiah, a leader of the 
Secessionists, Virginia Conven- 
tion, 1861, 254. 

Muschett, Louisa, extract from will, 
emancipating her slaves, 122. 

Negroes, what should be their status 
under freedom, 162. 

Negro trader, the odium attaching to, 
in Virginia, 101, 141, 142. 

Nevada, organized as a territory, 
1861, without prohibition as to 
slavery, 186. 

New Jersey, deprives negroes of 
suffrage, 1807, 168. 

New York, requires higher property 
qualification for suffrage of 
negroes than for whites, 1821, 
168. 

Nicolay and Hay, on reasons for 
omitting anti-slavery clause in 
Declaration of Independence, 
20; on reasons for Virginia's 
secession, 138. 

North Carolina, secedes because of 
President Lincoln's call for 
troops, 226. 



INDEX 



323 



Northern States, hostile attitude of 
certain of, regarding fugitive 
slave law, 197-209; reactionary 
influence of certain of, upon 
sentiment in Virginia, 207. 

Ohio, denies free negroes right to 
become residents of, 168; rati- 
fies amendment proposed to 
constitution, 1861, protecting 
slavery, 192; Governor of, re- 
fuses to honor requisition of 
Governor of Kentucky for re- 
turn of fugitives from justice, 
208. 

Ordinances, of 1784 and 1787 — 
Virginia's part in their enact- 
ment, 26, 27. 

Ordinance of Secession, adopted by 
Virginia Convention, April 17, 
1861, 277; ratified by the people 
May 23, 1861, 277. 

Oregon, denies free negroes right 
to become residents of, 170. 

Parker, Josiah, his efforts to impose 
tariff tax on importation of 
slaves, 33. 

Parker, Theodore, his denunciations 
of Federal judges and officials, 
216; eulogizes John Brown, 218; 
an apologist of slave insurrec- 
tion, 218. 

Pennsylvania, deprives negroes of 
suffrage, 1838, 168. 

"Personal Liberty Laws," their 
enactment by various Northern 
States, 202. 

Peyton, Martha E., extract from 
will, emancipating her slaves, 
110. 

Phillips, Wendell, leader of Aboli- 
tionists, 211; disunion senti- 
ments of, 213; denounces Web- 
ster and Lincoln, 216; eulogizes 



John Brown, 218; an apologist 
of slave insurrection, 218; hails 
secession of Southern States, 
221; declares emancipation child 
of civil convulsions, 224 and 225 ; 
denies the right of Federal 
Government to coerce Cotton 
States, 293; 

Preston, Francis, extract from deed 
emancipating a slave, 105. 

Preston, William Ballard, a leader of 
anti-slavery party in Virginia 
Legislature of 1832, 46; one of 
Committee from Virginia Con- 
vention, to wait upon Lincoln, 
273. 

Proclamations, President Lincoln's, 
for emancipation, 226 and 227; 
President Lincoln's, calling for 
troops, 275. 

Pro-slavery, growth of sentiment for, 
in Virginia, 49. 

Randolph, Edmund, opposes clause 
in constitution, permitting the 
African slave trade, 31. 

Randolph, George W., one of Com- 
mittee from Virginia Conven- 
tion, to wait upon President 
Lincoln, 273. 

Randolph, John of Roanoke, col- 
onization of his ex-slaves in 
Ohio, 68; extract from will, 
emancipating his slaves, 111; 
his characterization of slavery, 

*».!%*. 11 In 

Randolph, Richard Jr., extract from 
will, emancipating his slaves, 
106. 

Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, a 
leader of anti-slavery party in 
Virginia Legislature, 1832, 46; 
on reactionary influence of 
Abolitionists upon anti-slavery 



324 



INDEX 



sentiment in Virginia, 51 ; anti- 
slavery sentiments of, 95; re- 
cords the growth of anti-slavery 
sentiment in Virginia since the 
Revolution, 143. 

Rebellion, characteristics of a, 2. 

Relief Squadron, its expedition to 
Fort Sumter, 276. 

Representation, basis of, in Virginia, 
145, 172. 

Republic, ideals of, 242. 

Republican Party, attitude of, re- 
garding slavery in the territories, 
as declared in their platform, 
183, 186; abandons in Congress, 
1861, their position, 186; posi- 
tion of, regarding Fugitive Slave 
Law, 187, 188; position of, re- 
garding slavery in Southern 
States, 190, 193. 

Revolution, characteristics of a, 2. 

Rhodes, James Ford, estimate of 
Lee and the motives which 
impelled him to fight with Vir- 
ginia, 140; on Virginia's effort 
to save the Union, 244; his esti- 
mate of significance of Peace 
Conference, 247; on result of 
Virginia election, February, 
1861, 253; his estimate of anti- 
coercion sentiment in Virginia 
and other Border States, 285. 

Rhode Island, alone repeals "per- 
sonal liberty law," 206. 

Right of Revolution, held by Vir- 
ginia people, 286; as defined 
by Jefferson Davis, 287; as 
denned by Abraham Lincoln, 
290. 

Rives, William C, anti-slavery senti- 
ment of, 97, 98; on racial prob- 
lem, 163; a delegate from Vir- 
ginia to Peace Conference, 246; 



extract from his speech in Peace 
Conference, 248. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, on reactionary 
influence of Abolitionists, upon 
anti-slavery sentiment in Vir- 
ginia, 58; estimate of Robert 
E. Lee and his soldiers, 140. 

Ruffner, Henry, on reactionary in- 
fluence of Abolitionists upon 
anti-slavery sentiments in Vir- 
ginia, 52; anti-slavery senti- 
ments of, 99; his estimate of 
injurious effect of slavery upon 
Virginia's prosperity, 132. 

Russell, W. H., his opinion as to lack 
of settled policy in Federal ad- 
ministration, March, 1861, 274. 

Sanders, Sampson, colonization of 
his ex-slaves in Michigan, 69; 
extract from will, emancipating 
his slaves, 118. 

Schouler, James, on disunion senti- 
ments of Abolitionist leaders, 
214. 

Secession, advocates of, in Virginia, 
10; status of controversy re- 
garding slavery at time of 
Virginia's, 190-196; no cure for 
Virginia's grievances against 
Abolitionists, 211; Virginia's 
would menace slavery, 227, 228; 
contests in Virginia's Conven- 
tion, for and against, 265-274; 
Virginia's Convention defeats, 
268; President Lincoln's call for 
troops impels Virginia to, 277; 
Robert E. Lee denies constitu- 
tional right of, 288; William C. 
Rives condemns, of States, 288; 
how Virginia regarded, 295. 

Seddon, James A., a delegate from 
Virginia to Peace Conference, 
246^ 



INDEX 



325 



Seward, William H., on negro prob- 
lem, 165; on election in Virginia, 
1861, 252; his opinion as to lack 
of settled policy in Federal ad- 
ministration, April, 1861, 274; 
his replies as Secretary of State 
to President Lincoln's request 
for opinions as to provisioning 
Fort Sumter, 280-283; his offi- 
cial communication to American 
minister to Great Britain, April, 
1861, defining position of the 
President, 293. 

Seys, Rev. John, his account of de- 
parture of Herndon's slaves for 
Liberia, 71-73. 

Sherman, William T., on the negro 
problem, 165. 

Sheffey, James W., extract from 
speech in Virginia Convention, 
1861, on coercion, 261. 

Slaughter, Rev. Philip, his estimate 
of anti-slavery sentiment in Vir- 
ginia, 1831, 43 and 143. 

Slaves, their first importation, 16; 
rate of their importation, 16; 
their number in Virginia, 1776, 
24; efforts of Virginians in First 
Congress to impose tariff tax on 
importation of, 33; affection of, 
for masters, 70-73; transferred 
from Virginia to other states, 
147; sale of, by Virginia owners 
and traders, 147; practice of 
buying and selling, reviewed by 
William Henry Smith, 148; in- 
jury to certain classes of, by 
untimely emancipation, 159. 

Slavery, foremost among the causes 
of the Civil War, 3; Virginia's 
colonial record regarding, 15-24; 
earliest introduction of, 1619, 
16; opposition to, of Colonel 



William Byrd, 1736, 16, note 4; 
statutes restraining increase of, 
defeated by King George, 18; 
anti-slavery position of Vir- 
ginia declared, 18-24; its ex- 
clusion from the Northwest 
Territory, 26-28; statutes amel- 
iorating conditions of, 41-44; 
growth and culmination of senti- 
ment opposing, 43, 44; move- 
ment in General Assembly 1832, 
to abolish, 45-48; growth in 
sentiment favoring, 49; patri- 
archal character of, 101; in- 
jurious effects of, upon prosper- 
ity of Virginia, 127-137; un- 
profitable character of, in Vir- 
ginia, 127; difficulties of abolish- 
ing, 157-180; causes militating 
against free discussion of, in 
Virginia, 172-179; status of 
controversy regarding, 1860, 
182-189; promises of President 
Lincoln to respect the institution 
of, 190, 191; its integrity in 
Southern States pledged by 
Republican platform, 1861, 190; 
Virginia's secession not im- 
pelled by fear of legislation 
against, 191; amendment to 
constitution proposed by Con- 
gress, safeguarding the institu- 
tion of, 192; resolutions of Con- 
gress, pledging protection to, 
1861, 191; the most potent 
factor in precipitating the war, 
228; an unconstitutional assault 
upon, would have justified 
Virginia's resistance, 228; Vir- 
ginia's attitude towards, in ter- 
ritories, 269. 
Slaveholders, legal rights of, em- 
barrass emancipation, 177. 



326 



INDEX 



Smith, Caleb B., his replies as Secre- 
tary of Interior, to President 
Lincoln's request for opinions as 
to provisioning Fort Sumter, 
281, 284. 

Smith, John, extract from will, 
emancipating his slaves, 109. 

Smith, William, extract from will, 
emancipating his slaves, 121. 

Smith, William Henry, on reaction- 
ary influence of Abolitionists 
upon anti-slavery sentiment in 
Virginia, 58; his review of the 
practice of buying and selling 
slaves, 148. 

Southampton County, servile insur- 
rection in, 45. 

Stanton, Edwin M., his opinion as to 
lack of settled policy in Federal 
administration, March, 1861, 
273. 

State Sovereignty, the theory of, 285. 

Stephens, Alexander H., his estimate 
of the significance of the Relief 
Squadron's expedition to Fort 
Sumter, 277. 

Stiles, Robert, his estimate of the 
number of slaveholders among 
the members of Richmond How- 
itzers, 154. 

Stuart, Alexander H. H., a leader 
of the Union men, Virginia 
Convention, 1861, 255; one of 
committee from Virginia Con- 
vention to wait upon President 
Lincoln, 273. 

Stuart, J. E. B., owned no slaves at 
time of war, 156. 

Suffrage, white manhood, first estab- 
lished in Virginia by constitu- 
tion of, 1850-1851, 145. 

Summers, George W., declares dis- 
union a menace to slavery, 223 ; 



a delegate from Virginia to 
Peace Conference, 246; extract 
from his speech at same, 24S; 
a leader of the Union men, 
Virginia Convention, 1861, 255; 
extract from speech on coercion, 
Virginia Convention, 1861, 263; 
extract from letter on effect of 
suggested evacuation of Fort 
Sumter, 266. 

Sumter, Fort, strategic importance 
of its occupancy by Federal 
troops, 272. 

Taylor, Zachary, urges Congress to 
suppress African slave trade, 39. 

Tennessee, secedes because of Presi- 
dent Lincoln's call for troops, 
226. 

Territories, right of slaveholders in, 
a serious problem, 182. 

Thorn, Cameron E., his account of 
attempt of John Thom to 
colonize his ex-slaves, 73, 74. 

Tinsley, Robert, extract from will, 
emancipating his slaves, 122. 

Tocqueville, Alexis de, on negro prob- 
lem in America, 164; declares 
Federal Government, founded 
on consent of states, cannot 
be maintained by force, 289. 

Tucker, George, his estimate of re- 
actionary influence of Aboli- 
tionists upon anti-slavery senti- 
ment in Virginia, 51, 52. 

Tucker, St. George, anti-slavery 
sentiments of, 85; his influence 
in forming anti-slavery senti- 
ments of Thomas H. Benton, 
85, note 3. 

Turner, Nat, leads slave insurrection, 
1831, 45. 

Tyler, Sr., John, anti-slavery senti- 
ments of, 84. 



INDEX 



327 



Tyler, John, urges Congress to enact 
laws suppressing African slave 
trade, 38; anti-slavery senti- 
ments of, 87; a commissioner 
from Virginia to the President 
of the United States, 1861, 246; 
a delegate from Virginia to the 
Peace Conference, 1861, 246; 
an extract from his speech, as 
President of Peace Conference, 
248. 

"Underground Railroad," The, its 
origin and the character of its 
operations, 200, 201. 

Virginia, diversity of sentiment in, 
10; attitude of dominant ele- 
ment in, regarding slavery and 
secession, 10, 11; her opposition 
to coercion and grounds there- 
for, 1 1 ; right of self-government, 
basis of her position, 12; her 
Colonial record regarding slav- 
ery, 15-24; her efforts to restrain 
increase of slavery defeated by 
Great Britain, 17, 18; petition 
of her House of Burgesses, 1772, 
to King George, against African 
slave trade, 18; her opposition to 
African slave trade declared, by 
Mr. Jefferson, in the original 
Declaration of Independence, 
19; her opposition to African 
slave trade voiced in county 
meetings, 21 ; resolutions of her 
Colonial Convention against 
importation of slaves, 21; her 
anti-slavery position defined, 
1774, in Continental Congress, 
21, 22; her efforts to enforce the 
agreements for the non-importa- 
tion of slaves, 22; her Constitu- 
tion and Bill of Rights, 1776, 
antagonistic to slavery, 22, 23; 



Mr. Bancroft's estimate of her 
Bill of Rights, 23; number of 
slaves in, at outbreak of the 
Revolution, 24; her statute 
abolishing African slave trade, 
1778, 25; her cession of North- 
west Territory to Federal Gov- 
ernment, 26, 28; her part in 
adopting Ordinance of 1787, 27, 
28; Mr. Bancroft's estimate of, 
27; her General Assembly con- 
firms Deed and Ordinance, 1789, 
28; her opposition to clause of 
constitution permitting foreign 
slave trade, 29, 31 ; her continued 
efforts to restrain African slave 
trade, 33-40; her statutes— 1782, 
— permitting slaveholders to 
emancipate their slaves, 41; of 
1788 — punishing with death for 
enslavement of child of free 
blacks, 41; of 1795 — according 
slaves process of law without 
costs in proceedings affecting 
their freedom, 42; of 1803— 
requiring county authorities to 
keep registers, showing negroes 
entitled to liberty, 42; number 
of her free negroes, in 1810, 42; 
her Act of 1806, requiring 
emancipated slaves to leave 
state, 42; growth and culmina- 
tion, in 1831, of her anti-slavery 
sentiments, 43; reactionary ef- 
fect, upon her anti-slavery senti- 
ment of Nat Turner insurrection, 
the Abolitionists and the failure 
of her General Assembly, 1832, 
to abolish slavery or to remove 
free negroes, 43, 44; movement 
in her General Assembly, 1832 — 
to abolish slavery, 45-48; her 
growth in pro-slavery senti- 



328 



INDEX 



ment, 48-56; reactionary influ- 
ence of Abolitionists upon her 
anti-slavery sentiment, 51-59; 
her efforts in aid of negro 
colonization, 60-65 ; her attitude 
towards emancipation, 75; her 
record regarding slavery, as 
reviewed by St. George Tucker, 
85; public opinion in, ameliorates 
hardships of slavery, 101; in- 
stances of emancipations in, 103; 
small number of slaveholders 
in, 124; injurious effects of 
slavery upon, 127-137; her atti- 
tude towards custom of buying 
and selling slaves, 138-152; 
constitutional requirements in, 
regarding voting and apportion- 
ment of representation, 144, 145; 
colonists from, to Liberia, 152; 
small number of slaveholders 
among her soldiers, 153-155; 
causes militating against free 
discussion of slavery in, 172- 
180; her electoral vote in 1860, 
cast for Union candidates, 179; 
her secession not impelled by 
fear of adverse slavery legisla- 
tion, 191; effect of "personal 
liberty laws" and "Under- 
ground Railroad" upon people 
of, 200, 201; requisition of 
Governor of, upon Governor of 
New York for fugitive from 
justice denied, 207; her people 
appreciated the danger to slav- 
ery resulting from secession, 222- 
224; attitude of her people un- 
changed by Emancipation Proc- 
lamations, 226, 227; her part 
in the Revolution, 233-237; her 
part in making the Union, 238- 
242; her efforts to maintain 



peace and preserve the Union, 
244; her General Assembly calls 
Peace Conference at Washing- 
ton, February, 1861, 246; her 
people declare for Union, Feb- 
ruary 4, 1861, 251; result of 
election in, for delegates to 
State Convention, 252; her ac- 
tion on secession determined 
by President Lincoln's call for 
troops, 256 ; her position regard- 
ing coercion of Cotton States, 
259, 260; effect of Lincoln's 
First Inaugural upon members 
of her Convention, 260; contests 
in her Convention for and 
against secession, 265-273; re- 
port of Committee on Federal 
Relations, in her Convention, 
1861, fairly expressive of senti- 
ments of majority of her people, 
267-269; her Convention defeats 
motion to secede April 4, 1861, 
268; her attitude regarding 
slavery in territories, 269; pro- 
poses to re-enact inhibition as 
to slavery, north of 36 degrees 
30 minutes by Constitutional 
Amendment, 269; call of her 
Convention upon President Lin- 
coln, for definite declaration 
regarding coercion of Cotton 
States, 273; reply of President 
Lincoln to her Convention, 274; 
President Lincoln's call for 
troops impels her to secede 
(April 11, 1861), 275, 276; re- 
sponse of her Governor to call 
for troops, 278; sentiments of 
her people regarding coercion, 
285-289; her people, threatened 
with war, still adhere to their 
position on State Sovereignty, 



INDEX 



329 



294; how her people regarded 
secession, 295, 296 ; predominant 
characteristics of her people, 
298; her people's stand pre- 
determined, 298. 

War — Civil, Characteristics of a, 1. 

Ward, Sr., John, extract from will, 
emancipating his slaves, 109. 

Ward, John, colonization of his ex- 
slaves in Ohio, 68. 

Warwick, John, colonization of his 
ex-slaves in Ohio, 69; extract 
from will, emancipating his 
slaves, 117. 

Washington, Bushrod, First Presi- 
dent of American Colonization 
Society, 61. 

Washington, George, his anti-slavery 
sentiments, 83; extract from 
will, emancipating his slaves, 
106; speech as President of 
Philadelphia Convention, 1787, 
240. 

Webb, Thacker V., extract from 
will, emancipating his slaves, 
115. 

Webster, Daniel, on reactionary 
effect of Abolitionists upon anti- 
slavery sentiment in Virginia, 
55. 

Welles, Gideon E., his replies, as 



Secretary of the Navy, to Presi- 
dent Lincoln's request for opin- 
ions as to provisioning Fort 
Sumter, 281. 

Wickham, Williams C, a leader of 
Union men, Virginia Convention 
1861, 255. 

Williams, George W., views of, re- 
garding first importation of 
slaves, 16; on forces which 
secured enactment of clause in 
constitution, permitting African 
slave trade, 30. 

Wilson, Henry, estimate of debate in 
Virginia Legislature, 1832, re- 
garding abolition of slavery, 46; 
on the effects of Virginia's 
action regarding secession, 265. 

Wisconsin, Supreme Court of, re- 
leases prisoner convicted in 
Federal Court, 203; resolutions 
adopted by General Assembly of 
1859 asserting sovereignty of 
state, 203. 

Wise, Henry A., writes, as Consul, 
from Rio Janeiro, against Afri- 
can slave trade, 39; depicts Vir- 
ginia's poverty, 1856, 136, 137. 

Wolseley, Viscount Lord, on cause 
for which Lee fought, 12; esti- 
mate of Robert E. Lee, 140. 



622 ,^ M 




















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